Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Boston Brown Bread

It defies categories. It looks like cake, tastes sweet, and is packed with whole grains. It makes me feel virtuous.

Sometimes I eat it with baked beans and tomato wedges. More often I eat it with a bit of butter as breakfast or a snack. It keeps for several days in the refrigerator and is fine if you warm it a bit.

It's a kitchen sink recipe. I dump in whatever flours I have on hand. The last version had a combination of oat bran, whole wheat, quinoa flakes, and corn flour as well. I like more molasses. So I tend to use 1/2 cup of molasses and 1/4 cup of maple syrup. You can use one or the other, or a combination. I also decided to try and make it a bit like gingerbread. I added 2 teaspoons ground ginger, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg, and 1 teaspoon vanilla.


Boston Brown Bread

By Mark Bittman

From the How to Cook Everything Vegetarian® app

This soft‐crusted bread, traditionally eaten with Baked Beans, is best with a mixture of flours. Although it can be baked or steamed, I prefer baking. Stir up to 1 cup of raisins into the prepared batter if you like.


Ingredients:
Butter or neutral oil, like grapeseed or corn, for the pans
2 cups buttermilk or yogurt, or 2 cups less 2 tablespoons milk plus 2 tablespoons white vinegar (see Step 2)
3 cups assorted flours, such as 1 cup each rye, cornmeal, and whole wheat or all‐purpose
1½ teaspoons salt
1¼ teaspoons baking soda
¾ cup molasses or maple syrup


Steps:
Preheat the oven to 300°F. Liberally grease two 8 × 4‐inch loaf pans or one 9 × 5‐inch pan.
If you're using buttermilk or yogurt, ignore this step. If not, make the soured milk: Warm the milk gently—1 minute in the microwave is sufficient, just enough to take the chill off—and add the vinegar. Let it rest while you prepare the other ingredients.
Mix the dry ingredients, then add the sweetener and buttermilk. Stir just until mixed; this is a loose batter, not a dough. Pour or spoon into the loaf pan(s) and bake for 1 hour or a little longer, until a toothpick inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean. Let cool on a rack for 10 minutes before removing from the pans; eat warm.


Courtesy of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Copyright © Double B Publishing Inc. All rights reserved.

Thursday, January 02, 2014

Chocolate Szalami

Hozzávalók:

  • 30 dkg háztartási keksz
  • 10 dkg vaj
  • 25 dkg cukor
  • 2 tojás
  • 10 dkg kakaó
  • 2 kaná rum

Elkészítés:


A cukrot a tojással jól kikeverjük, belekeverjük a vajat. Amikor már sima, hozzáadjuk a kakaót, a rumot és az előzőleg ledarált kekszet. Jól összedolgozzuk, szalámi formát készítünk, és alufóliába csomagoljuk. Legalább 4 óra hosszat hűtőben tároljuk. Aki szereti, megtöltheti ízlés szerinti krémmel.

source:  http://www.mindmegette.hu/csokiszalami.recept




Meat Pies 2014

French Meat Pie
by Sister M. Concepta Mermis

31/2 lb. pork
1 lb. beef
1 onion
2 tsp. salt
3 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. pepper
1 1/2 tsp. loves
1 tsp. celery salt
1 c. dry bread crumbs (or more)
Cook meat and 1 onion in water to cover meat, simmer about 45 minutes to 1 hour. Break up the meat with a wooden spoon as it cooks. Remove onion and discard. Set aside to cool overnight to allow fat to congeal on top. 
Skim off grease (use to make pastry). Add bread crumbs and seasonings. Taste and adjust seasonings.  Put meat mixture into pastry shell, top with crust. Slit the top of the crust to allow steam to escape. Bake on cookie sheet or foil in case the pie bubbles over. Bake about 35 minutes or until brown in 400 degree oven. Let stand thirty minutes before serving.

This year I used half a kilo of ground beef and half a kilo of ground pork.  (One kilo meat yielded about 5 cups of filling, enough for one 11-inch pan.)  I really think it should be mostly pork, however.  I think the beef overwhelms the spices.  I also halved the original spice amounts, but then added back the entire amounts and still felt that the spices were not strong enough.


Next year, more pork.  I'll aim for for 3/4 kilo pork, 1/4 kilo beef.  





I made my first pie crust from scratch this year.  I did not use the fat from the meat.  Instead I used only butter.  While the audience was delighted, I was not.  The crust was very crispy and had a heavy butter taste.  It was tasty, but it was not a pie crust.  I didn't have a pastry cutter.  So I froze the butter and used a vegetable grater instead.  Hopefully by next year the crust will have been conquered.  



Served with mashed potatoes and creamed peas (otherwise know as borsofozelek).  For dessert, homemade chocolate salami.  Recipe to follow.