Bittman's Beer Bread

I made Mark Bittman's beer bread recipe last weekend and it was delicious. It was so easy, I even baked two batches! I used Spaten Optimator, fyi.

We had it for dinner with some brats and wurst. Yum!

Pretzel Brot

Inspired by these, I thought I'd try making my own.  I had wanted to tackle this project this past weekend, but our kitchen was otherwise um, occupied.

So, I spent the day working at home (in part to avoid students trying to add into my classes) and was able to weave in this baking project into my research work.

I'm not especially pleased with the Laugenbrezel recipe that I used--the dough was very, very sticky.  I think next time I try these, I will use my regular pretzel recipe from Martha Stewart's cookbook instead.  I had light Jarlsberg cheese, smoked turkey breast, and diced orange bell pepper for the inside.  (Lulu is fascinated with the orange bell peppers for some reason, so I bought the smallest, lightest one I could find last time I was at the store, even though we didn't need one)

The first one I tried definitely looked um, mangled.

You can see the orange bell pepper sticking out on the top there

But, I started to get the hang of it by the end.

Not too shabby--held together during boiling with no leakage

I made six stuffed pretzel rolls and plan on bringing them with me to school for lunch next week.

various levels of success

I boiled them in baking soda-ed gently boiling water prior to those photos--that's why the one sort of split in two. I had to be really careful, too, like I was cooking knödel/dumplings.

But, twenty minutes in a 450F oven, and they all looked very tasty!

fresh from the oven!

And I'm quite pleased with the later ones I did--they look just like the commercial stuff I ate last week:

Look at that beauty!

but they certainly tasted a LOT better!

Next time, I think rather than dicing the bell pepper, I might leave it in slices. Ditto for the cheese. And I think a thin schmear of mustard would bring it all together in a nice way.

Will definitely have to experiment with these again!

Farro

the Full Monty

We have been long time farro fans in this household, but this recipe caught me by surprise with how good it is! Our mods were:

1. Cutting the ricotta by half and subb'ing in a little smoked mozarella (not much though)
2. Using panko in lieu of breadcrumbs and cooking spray instead of butter
3. Substituting an 8 inch springform pan for the pie pan
4. Adding LOTS of herbs from the garden:  thyme and marjoram mostly

It was delish!

close-up in the pan

filling with a green salad and green beans.

French Tomato Tart

We enjoyed a French tomato tart last night for dinner with a chilled rose (also from France).  I subb'd out the goat cheese (not a big fan) in place of ricotta but otherwise cooked the recipe as is from David Lebovitz's website.  I picked a couple of tomatoes from the garden and it was so simple to pull together.

Backyard Panoroma

My friend Tina was demonstrating the wonders of her new iPhone and its various apps, including one that will apparently let you create a panorama.

So, here is my backyard yesterday afternoon (including our friends, Todd and Delia, from Grass Valley):

Click on the picture to see it larger.

Kinda cool, huh? It's a little awkward because I had to shrink it down to fit in the blog, but the original (which is MUCH larger) is very neat-o!)

Note: there's two of Todd because he moved as Tina was taking photos

Birthday Cupcakes

Hellen and I spent part of the afternoon decorating cupcakes for Lulu to take to school tomorrow on her birthday. Her actual birthday celebrations are somewhat up in the air due to my mother's uncertain travel plans (she has jury duty on Aug 16th, but she doesn't know if she'll get picked to serve on a jury or not). Hopefully they will get figured out soon b/c we're saving the present-opening extravaganza (and I mean that literally) for when she gets here.

In the meantime, I wanted Lulu to have a little something to help celebrate on the actual day. Last August when we visited the Jelly Belly factory in Fairfield, I picked up a book called Hello, Cupcake! and I've been wanting to make these ever since.

This morning, I baked the cupcakes so that they'd be nice and cool by the time Hellen came over. I followed the book's recommendation and piped the cake batter into the cups and I'm really pleased with how smoothly they turned out!

Lesson?  Don't mess with a cup already filled with batter (see left tray, lower right for exhibit)

I don't think mine have ever turned out this nicely before!

Then, I assembled my mise en place. Every good pastry chef would argue that you have to have your mise!

Anthony Bourdain has taught me well....always have your mise!

After lunch, the actual cupcake decorating began. Hellen tackled most of the lady bugs while I smeared green frosting on. Then, we made yellow and orange frosting and both starting piping sunflower petals on the oreo cookies.

With both of us working on it, we were done pretty quickly and even had enough frosting and M&Ms leftover to decorate the remaining oreo cookies:

To harden up the frosting a bit, I stuck them in the fridge. So, when you open our fridge, you can't help but smile!  Hellen took two home for her and Derek and we walked a cupcake and an oreo down the street to the Beards to cheer up Melissa and treat Baby J.

The expression of surprise and joy on Lulu's face when we got home this afternoon was totally worth it. Now, the challenge is to keep her from trying to eat them (and getting them to school in one piece!) before tomorrow....

New Mexican Tomato Tart

I really wanted a tomato tart yesterday for dinner, but I didn't want the same ol', same old.  So, I tweaked a recipe to add blue cornmeal, Chimayo powder, ground cumin, and fresh oregano from the garden.  I liked that the original recipe only used 2 Tb butter and 2 Tb olive oil, too.  The tart dough smelled SO delicious, especially when we baked it!  There was a nice level of heat without being overpowering and it just smelled like Taos.  We topped the tart crust with a thin schmear of Dijion mustard, thinly sliced Vidalias, some lardons of bacon, and tomatoes from the garden (we can't remember which heirloom variety we planted!).  Then Gropius put together a mixture of grated cheese we had on hand (mostly the remants of the Swiss/German alpine cheeses from earlier this summer), a couple of eggs, some fresh thyme from the garden, and a dash of half-n-half.  We baked it for about 20-25 minutes.

We enjoyed it with a Gruet Pinot Noir that we picked up at BevMo's 5-cent sale for a great Sunday dinner.