Baguette

I got this great book called Martha Stewart’s Baking Handbook. It has a ton of great recipes in it, so I was super excited to have some free time to try out one of the recipes. Imagine my disappointment when I went to Whole Foods looking for fresh yeast and they had none. Not only does Whole Foods not have fresh yeast they don’t carry it. So after I went to three other stores I came to the determination that no one sells fresh yeast.

I was very disappointed but I decided to flex my cooking muscles and alternated the recipe so I could use dry yeast.

Ingredients
5 1/2 cups unbleached bread flour (I’ve used all-purpose with great results)
1 tbsp coarse kosher salt
2 1/4 tsp instant yeast
2 cups warm water

Method

Prep Day: Combine all ingredients in bowl of mixer, set with paddle attachment, and mix on lowest speed for 1 minute until well blended and smooth. Let rest, uncovered for 5 minutes. Switch to dough hook and mix on medium-low speed for 2 minutes. Dough should be smooth and tacky but not sticky. Knead dough by hand on lightly floured work surface for 1 minute, and then transfer to a large clean, lightly oiled bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and immediately refrigerate overnight or up to 4 days.

Baking Day: Remove dough from refrigerator 2 hours prior to baking. Gently transfer to lightly floured work surface, taking care to release as little gas as possible. Divide dough into four equal portions. You can also do as I have by removing just enough dough to make one baguette and have a fresh baguette everyday for the next four days from one single batch of dough.

Form Baguettes: Pat each piece of divided dough into a thick rectangle.

Fold the bottom half to the center and seal the seam. Fold the top half to the center and once again seal the seam.

Roll the top half of the dough over the seam to create a new seam on the bottom of the loaf.

With seam side underneath, gently rock loaf back and forth, with hands moving out toward and increasing pressure at the ends, to slightly taper the loaf until baguette is the length of baguette pan (or baking sheet).

Place the formed baguettes on a baguette pan or a baking sheet that has been oiled or covered with parchment. Mist top of dough with oil, loosely cover with plastic wrap, and proof at room temperature for about 1 1/2 hours, or until increased to 1 1/2 times its original size

Baking: About 45 minutes before baking, preheat oven to 450 degrees. Place a sheet pan, which will serve as steam pan, with a 1-inch rim on shelf under which baguettes will be baked. Remove plastic wrap from the dough 15 minutes prior to baking. Just prior to baking, score the dough 1/2 inch deep with a serrated knife or razor. Transfer dough to the oven, pour 1 cup hot water into the steam pan.

Bake for 15 minutes, then rotate pan and bake for another 15-20 minutes, until the crust is rich golden brown, the loaves sound hollow when thumped, and the internal temperature is about 200 degrees in the center. Cool on wire rack before slicing or serving. Best eaten the same day, or heated briefly in the oven the next day if crust loses its crispness

While the process is very long and time consuming it is so worth it in the end. The best part is it makes four loaves of bread. It is probably one of the best bread recipe I have made.

Missing my Husband

I have been traveling for work last week and this week. We are currently staying in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Being away for this long really makes me realize how much I miss my husband and my house. Even though both things cause me stress all I want to do is lay in bed with my husband next to me.

The worst part for me is at night. I am so used to having my husband by my side at night. I like to feel him next to me either holding my hand or breathing next to me. It is harder to fall asleep without having him next to me. I am missing my best friend and it is killing me. I don’t like being away from my husband for so long. I am happy that the person I am traveling with is nice and we get along really well but he is certainly no substitute for my husband.

I know my husband never reads my blog but just in case he does, I want him to know I love him, miss him and can’t wait to see him on Friday afternoon.

This is a picture of me and my husband from our wedding. He is spinning me around on the dance floor. I love how my dress loooks and our intials in the backround.

Vegetable Bolognese

I know with the new year many people are trying to eat more veggies and eating better. So one of my favorite meals to make and it is great to make ahead of time is Vegetable Bolognese. When I don’t have time to make pasta sauce I take a short cut and buy store tomato sauce. The worst and best part of this recipe is the amount of vegetables. You can add a ton of vegetables but you have to chop them all. So the good news is your husband is eating veggies but you have to cut them all up, and if you husband is anything like mine the veggies MUST be chopped in very very small pieces. If he can recognize the veggies he will not touch them.

So I added onions, mushrooms, celery, carrots, zucchini and peppers. I use my food processor to cut the veggies down as much as possible. Once they are at the right size I place them in a super hot Dutch Oven and sauté them in very hot oil. Because the pot is going to be full of veggies you will not be able to sauté all of them at one time, it is just to give the veggies some extra flavor. Once the veggies have been in there for awhile add the sauce. Once the sauce has been added I let it simmer for at least 5 hours that way you know that the veggies are soft and pliable.

Once I am ready to serve the sauce I add one container of mascarpone cheese. This allows the sauce to gain an extra depth of flavor and makes the sauce a lot creamier. This is a house favorite.

The bowl of veggies before I chopped them up.

The veggies in the pot before I had the sauce

The sauce is complete now the last step is to add mascarpone cheese.

White chocolate covered Oreo Balls

My husband loves Oreo cookies, but as people know who have read my blog I don’t like to buy cookies. When I have time I try to make cookies for my husband from scratch. This week I did not have any time. It was super busy with work so I need to take a little bit of a short cut.

I bought a package of Oreo cookies and made what my husband calls Oreo balls of deliciousness. They are super easy to make and something that would be great to make if you children.
The only ingredients you need are a package of Oreo cookies and an 8oz package of cream cheese. Make sure that you bring the cream cheese up to room temperature. Use your food processor to crush up the Oreo cookies. It is important to grind up the cookies as finely as possible because you are going to have to mix in the cream cheese.

Once you have the crumbs mix in the cream cheese. Make sure that the cream cheese is incorporated well into the cookie crumbs and place bowl in the fridge. You want the mixture cold so you can handle the dough. I use a melon baller to form the cookies then place the cookie balls on a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Place the baking sheet in fridge. While the cookies are chilling in the fridge start to melt the chocolate to cover the cookies. I use white chocolate but you can use dark or milk. Please see blogs for white chocolate pretzels to see how I melt chocolate.
Dip the chilled balls in white chocolate and let cool on parchment paper in the fridge for 2-3 hours and enjoy.

The cookies ready to be ground up.

Finished cookies.

What the cookies look like on the inside, thanks to my hubby for helping out with this picture. He volunteered to take a bit out of one of the cookies.

Champagne Risotto

Like I said in a past post my husband and I did not make a big deal about Valentine’s Day this year just because we had just gotten back from Hawaii. So I made a Red Velvet Cake and some champagne risotto. I usually try to make something very special for dinner but was just tired and wanted to relax. I wanted to make sure that I made something I knew I had the ingredients for. I always try to keep some champagne in the house in case I have a bad day at work or I just need a little pick me up.

This was a very easy recipe to make and both my husband and I love risotto so I knew that it would soon become one of our favorite dishes. I really like how the champagne gives the sauce a little bit of bite at the end. I added some roasted asparagus and mushrooms to give the rice a more roasted taste and I think it balanced out the flavors really well. Below is the recipe I adopted and some pictures.

These are the mushrooms and asparagus before I roasted them in the oven.

The finished product. It was so good I think I will be making it again very soon.

Ingredients
3 cups reduced-sodium chicken broth
12 asparagus spears, cut diagonally into 1-inch pieces
2 tablespoons butter, divided
3/4 cup Arborio rice or medium-grain white rice
1/2 cup Champagne
1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan

1/4 teaspoon salt

Red velvet cake

Valentines Day was on the Monday after my husband and I got back from Hawaii, so I did not want to make a huge deal out of the day. We had such a wonderful time in Hawaii I just wanted to have a low key night at home. So I made some champagne risotto (please see upcoming post) and red velvet cake.

Now as we all know from my other posts it has been very hard for me to make a cake from scratch. I don’t know what my problem is if I over mix the batter or don’t sift the flour enough but my cakes always seem to come out dry. EXECPT for this time, the cake turned out great. I think that is has something to do with my oven. I keep the baking temperature the same but cut the time down and it turned out perfect and very moist. I made cream cheese frosting of the top and it was the best cake I have even made from scratch. Not to mention I was able to use the heart shaped cake pans that my father-in-law gave to me.

The cake before it is baked. Have to say it is hard to frost a cake when it is in a shape like this.

Aview of both the cakes before they were baked. Please excuse my dirty stove did not have time to clean it before I took the pictues.

A look at my layers of the cake. Like I said it was hard to frost the cake because of the shape but it was DELISH!!!

Cheese Pinwheels

I know that the holiday season is over and so is football season so this blog is probably a little late but I wanted to share this with everyone. It is extremely simple appetizer to make and is always a crowd pleaser.

You will need cream cheese, parmesan cheese, mozzarella cheese and Pillsbury pizza dough.
Roll out the dough to your desired thickness; I usually make mine pretty thin because we will be rolling it up like a jelly roll. Make sure that you bring the cream cheese up to room temperature and mix with the mozzarella cheese and parmesan cheese. There are no precise measurements it just all depends on how cheesy you are feeling that day (haha).

Spread the mixture over the pizza dough and make sure that you leave some room around the ends. If you place the mixture too close to the edge it will ooze out when you begin to roll. Once the mixture is spread on the pizza dough start with one end and roll and roll to the other, when you are done it should look like a jellyroll. With the seam side down cut the roll in smaller pieces, the cuts should look like pinwheels. Place the pieces on a baking sheet with parchment paper and sprinkle with some shuddered mozzarella cheese . Place in the oven at 350 for 30 min. until they puff up. Serve them hot but they are also great cold just heated up in the microwave for 30 seconds.

Side view.

Front view