Friday night, after the baguette-making, I needed another “quick and easy” recipe (and also something I could dunk my heavenly crispy and warm baguette slices into!) for dinner.
Continuing on with my little bread-making craze, I spent a great part of Friday making Baguettes! I started the “starter” the night before and Friday morning began the long “proofing” stage. By Friday evening we had 3 crispy baguettes that we could not keep our hands off! It really is such a satisfying feeling to bake bread, you feel like you are directly sustaining your family. Sort of like regardless what happens, I can make bread! And we can live off bread! I know I sound completely ridiculous, BUT you start to see how homemaking is a real job. You save money, nourish your body and warm your home (with the oven heated up for baking-HA!). I am definitely proud and have even more respect for homemakers everywhere!
In the share pick-up last week we got a whole chicken from Griggstown Quail Farm in NJ and I wanted to break it down into sections to make it last. Let me just tell you that was not a pretty sight to behold, especially the breast plate removal. After that whole ordeal was over I wanted a quick and easy recipe for the drumstick/thighs and found this one in the February issue of Gourmet. This was great! Really nicely spiced and the onions beautifully caramelized. I accompanied the chicken with a collard greens-potato mash-up. Cook the collard greens with some garlic until soft and mash them into some boiled potatoes with a lil bit of milk.
Mix oil with spices, 1 1/2 teaspoons salt, and 1 teaspoon pepper in a large bowl, then add chicken and onion, tossing to coat. Arrange chicken, skin side up, and onion in a 3-quart shallow baking dish.
Bake until chicken is just cooked through and skin is golden, about 30 minutes. Skim any fat from pan juices in dish.
Going to play a lil “catch up” since last week was busy with inaugurations and visitors!
Last weekend I went by the Fair Food Farmstand at Reading Terminal and picked up this awesome sweet beef bologna from Countryside Organics in Paradise, PA! It was the best thing in the world! A real paradise for my tastebuds. And even during my quick trip down to the Inauguration I couldn’t help dreaming about that bologna and coming home to it! How sad is that?! I also picked up a bag of delicious, crispy mixed greens that was a perfect topping for my dreamy sandwich.
I just learned that you can order local flour and spelt (besides their awesome Levains and Challahs) through Four Worlds Bakery and am really stoked! I really want to try my hand at some baguettes soon! Here is a great video of Michael “Challahman” Dolich moving the bakery from his basement to the new location at 4423 Chestnut in West Philly using BIKES via Pedal Co-op!
Also, check out this weekend’s episode of a Splendid Table: Locavore Nation! Lynne Kasper talks with Barbara Kingsolver, author of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life. And there is also a great segment surveying the Locavore Nation volunteers who just finished up a year of acquiring 80 percent of their food from local sources. Really interesting observations and experiences!
One of my husband’s favorite meals that I make is veggie enchiladas. I first got the recipe from Martha Stewart but have tinkered with it the dozens of times I’ve made these enchiladas. I mainly don’t like the sauce that’s included in the recipe and have been looking for an alternative. Today I did some digging on the Homesick Texan blog and found this awesome Chili Gravy recipe! The gravy was phenomenal! Really spicy and deep, perfect for this winter freeze we have today! It’s supposed to be a low of 8º F tonight! ahhh! I added a tablespoon of tomato paste and used the last of my chicken stock!
Also instead of using plain old tortillas, I made spelt tortillas for the first time! And these also added heartiness to the meal. I had tried my hand at spelt crackers back in December, but I couldn’t roll them out thin enough and they were brick hard; so I was a little skeptical of this recipe at first and bought some corn tortillas to have just in case (but was so proud I did not need them!). For the stuffing I mixed together 2 cups monterey jack, 1 can of black beans, sliced whites of scallions, 1 cup corn (that I froze this summer!), 1 tbsp cumin and 2 sliced serrano peppers. I poured sauce on the bottom of the pan and then rolled up the 8 tortillas and squeezed them in tight. Smothered them with the rest of the sauce and sprinkled a cup of cheese on top of that. Baked in a preheated 400º oven for about 20 minutes. Let it cool a few and enjoyed! We ate the whole pan like total porksters. Now I think I’m ready to curl up and hibernate in my bed the rest of the winter.
Divide into 8 equal parts and let sit, covered, another 20 minutes.
Roll each ball out to a 6- or 7-inch circle shape. I’ve found it helps to flatten each ball with your hand. Then take the rolling pin and roll from the center outwards, back and forth a few times as you go around the circle. When it starts to get thinner, take your left hand (if you’re right handed) and turn the tortilla a couple inches. Use your right hand to use the rolling pin (holding in the middle) and roll from the center outwards. Keep turning and rolling until it is paper thin.
Preheat a skillet on medium high heat.
Place a tortilla into the skillet and watch until bubbles form. This won’t take long.
After bubbles form, and the bottom is lightly brown (or there are darker spots), flip over, press down once or twice, and cook for about 30-45 seconds, or if smoke appears.
Cook remaining tortillas, watching carefully, and place in a plastic bag, with wet paper towels in between them (or at least on top and bottom of stack) to keep them soft and moist.
Refrigerate for later or remove the paper towels and freeze.
Today I was motivated by Smitten Kitchen’s Light Wheat Bread sans bread machine post and made myself a loaf! Not only am I excited about not having to buy a commercial loaf with all the extra gunk in it but my apartment smells awesome! I followed the above recipe exactly except for using a slightly bigger loaf pan. It all came out perfect and the slices tasted delicious as buns for our black bean burgers. I was really impressed (and even gave myself a little pat on the back).
Encouraged by my friend Nicole’s “Dried Bean success” I set on trying to make Heidi Swanson’s “Giant Chipotle White Beans” recipe from her 101 Cookbooks blog using dried giant lima beans or as the Greeks call them “Gigantes” or “Γιγαντες” which means giant. I didn’t get my dried beans from Rancho Gordo which is recommended in this recipe and in the originating recipe from Laurence Jossel, instead I stole them from my Mom who I think got them at a Hispanic market. So I understood right off that I was probably working with an inferior bean that was sitting around for a long time and wouldn’t be quite so fresh. So I soaked my beans for 24 hours! Yes, 24 hours. At 6pm, I rinsed them and started to cook them hoping that the marathon soak would result in a shorter cooking time (not that much shorter, but hoping for an hour). Nope. It took 2 hours to cook and even then, the beans needed more time! But it was 8pm and we needed to eat before going to bed; and then still by the time we ate, at 9 pm, I was full by the time I went to bed and had a fitful night’s sleep. I actually composed this post in my head at 4am in the morning when I woke up (again!) parched and uncomfortable. Do I sound frustrated? ha!
The recipe itself was pretty good except that I would make more of the tomato sauce, the dish felt a little dry (but that could have also been the undercooked beans!). Also, as far as the oregano pesto goes (I swapped Heidi’s cilantro pesto for the original recipe’s oregano pesto), how do you actually process such small amounts in a mini processor? I used the mini bowl but nothing was getting chopped up. So I dumped it all into a mortar n’ pestle and tried to at least smash the garlic down. Any ideas? Do you just add more oil? I used my own oregano pictured above and got to make my own breadcrumbs using some some local Slow Rise Bakery whole wheat bread.
