My first loaves with the BBA and my love of Anadama Bread!

About a week ago Nicole of Pinch my Salt sent out a twitter message saying “I need a challenge. Am thinking of baking my way through every single recipe in The Bread Baker's Apprentice. Anyone want to join me?” Well I jumped right in. Both feet, no thought at all. I think I was one of the first 10 that joined…did I even have the book? Nope but I ordered it that night!!!

The Bread Baker's Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread

We are now almost 200 strong with members everywhere on the globe. It’s an incredibly enthusiastic group that wants to share like no group I have ever belonged to before. Awesome!

Our goal is to bake our way through Peter Reinhart’s The Bread Baker's Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread. An intimidating book at anytime but to think that you are going to be baking one of these recipes a week is slightly overwhelming to say the least. But I love a challenge and feel a real need to get out of my comfort zone. Oh yah, I bake all of our bread but I never seem to have the time or the desire to try something new and different. This will change all that!!!

Our first challenge was Anadama Bread. This is a delicious sandwich type loaf that is made with cornmeal and molasses. I did change a couple of things around with this recipe and it turned out absolutely perfect.

The recipe calls for 6 Tablespoons of light molasses. All I had was regular and it is pretty strong so I used 4 Tablespoons of molasses and 2 Tablespoons of honey. I used the coarse cornmeal that the recipe called. The only other thing I changed was using only 1 1/2 teaspoons of yeast. I used Rapid Rise as that’s what I have and the recipe called for Instant Yeast. Still not sure about the difference but mine turned out prefect. Light and fluffy. We enjoyed this bread over the weekend as sandwiches with black forest ham and muenster cheese. The sweet in the bread complimented the sandwiches perfectly!

Will I make this again? Most definitely!!!

As Always…

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com

A little late for Cinco de Mayo but good anytime…

I hate when real life gets in the way of my food blog, but sadly it has. I had my youngest home with me and then I ended up sick. Not the really bad sick but enough to knock me on my keester for a day or so. Anyway this post is sadly long overdue but too good not to post!

Pastel Azteca

A couple of weeks ago I was searching for a recipe to take to our groups regular monthly pot luck. This months theme was Mexican, Spanish or Latino. Easy enough huh? I just didn’t want to do any of the common things like tacos or enchiladas. I was going to do tamales but that looks like a ton of work. I then remembered my friend Ben at What's Cooking giving me a lead on one of his favorite recipes!!! After looking it over I decided that this one would be perfect and was exactly what I was looking for!!!

Thanks Ben for a delicious recipe and one that was a real hit! The only thing I would do differently next time is to make more sauce. The sauce was delicious!!!

Chicken Pastel Azteca (from Ben @ What’s Cooking?)
8-10 servings

The ingredients:

• 1 chicken breast shredded (I used 2 cooked breasts)
• 1 lb tomatoes
• 1 medium size onion
• 3 garlic cloves peeled
• 1-2 chipotle adobado peppers
• 16 ounces tortilla chips, you can either make your own by cutting in quarters approximately 24 corn tortillas and frying them or baking them or buy them made at the store
• 3 cups chicken broth
• 8 oz. Chihuahua cheese shredded 2 cups approx. or shredded mozzarella cheese
• 1/2 red onion sliced
• Salt and pepper to taste

The how-to:

1. Blend together tomatoes, onion, garlic and adobado peppers using one cup of chicken broth. (I cooked the onions and the garlic first then blended this in my food processor)
2. Pour the sauce into a sauce pan and add the rest of the chicken broth. Bring to a boil, season to taste and reduce the heat to low. Simmer for about 15 minutes.
3. Preheat oven to 350° F.
4. Place a layer of tortilla chips at the bottom of a 9”x13” baking dish using 1/2 of the tortillas.
5. Add a second layer of shredded chicken, half of the shredded cheese and half of the red onion slices.
6. Pour some of the tomato sauce into the pan.
7. Add a final layer of tortilla chips and cheese and pour the rest of the sauce.
8. Bake for 20 minutes, let it rest for 10 minutes before serving and garnish with sour cream, red onion and chopped parsley.

Too late for Cinco de Mayo but still a really good meal. This would be a quick and easy week night meal and I can’t wait to make it again!!!

As Always…

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com

Lemon Curd and Pop Tarts

I love lemon.  Anything made with lemon will soon turn into my favorite thing.  I love lemon cakes, tarts, muffins, pies and now even Pop Tarts!!!  For our monthly Pot Luck I made another Limón cello Cheesecake but this time I made a delicious Lemon Curd to go on top.  There was a ton of lemon curd left over but I just knew I would come up with a good use for it.

Then over the weekend we were in Costco and the girl’s saw some Pop Tarts and asked if they could have them.  Once I finished laughing and told them no I realized that they had given me a great idea!!!  I would use some leftover Lemon Curd to make them Homemade Pop Tarts. 

Fresh Lemon Curd (Meeta at What’s For Lunch, Honey? with a lot more info on making lemon curd!)

Ingredients
Printable version of recipe here.(link directly to Meeta’s site)

4 organic lemon, zest and juice
110g unsalted butter, cut into pieces (1/2 cup)
4 eggs, beaten
450g fine granulated sugar (2 1/4 cups)

Method

1. Set a fine strainer over a medium bowl, then set aside.
2. In a medium sized saucepan whisk together the grated lemon zest and juice, sugar and eggs until incorporated and the sugar has dissolved.
3. Place the saucepan over medium heat and gently cook the mixture, stirring with a wooden spoon, until steaming. Make sure the curd does not boil. Stir frequently and continue to cook until the curd has thickened and the curd coats the back of the wooden spoon - approx 3-7 minutes.
4. Take the curd off the heat and then add the butter, stirring to incorporate it to the curd. Pour the curd mixture through the prepared strainer to make sure there are no lumps in the lemon curd.
5. Pour into warm sterile jars, cover and seal. Allow to come to room temperature, then refrigerate.

This lemon curd was simple and delicious and I will definitely be making it again.  It was perfect on top of the cheesecake as well as on bread and toast!!!

Homemade Lemon Curd Pop Tarts (adapted from Bake Me More and several other blogs that she has mentioned!)

Ingredients:

• Pie crust, refrigerated or your favorite homemade pie crust
• lemon curd (or any jam or jelly you like)
• Glaze or Egg Wash
• Sparkling Sugar 

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. (Laurel went by the temp setting on the box, the original recipe calls for 450.  I did what she did)

Unroll one of the pie crusts and square the edges. Cut into rectangles. Place 1 tsp of jam in the center of a rectangle and top with another piece of crust. Crimp all four edges. Repeat until all of the pie crust is used. I also took the rounded edges that I cut off and rolled them together to form more pop-tarts.

Bake the pop-tarts for about 7 - 8 minutes or until slightly brown. Once cool, pour glaze over and decorate with sugar. If you don’t want to add extra sugar with the glaze, you can use an egg wash on the tops  with some white sugar.

To Make the Glaze:

• 1 cup powder sugar
• milk to thin

Place powdered sugar in bowl. Pour milk slowly until it has a consistency of really thick syrup.  Drizzle over the cooled Pop Tarts.

These were so incredibly good.  I have no idea how they stack up against real Pop Tarts because I haven’t tasted them but these will be made again and again. 

As Always…

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com

What I Was Able to Learn Last Weekend…(or what I learnt or learned last weekend) and a recipe!

As most of you know last weekend I participated in a hunger challenge. Trust me when I say that I don't go in for stuff like this lightly. I like food. I like food a whole awful lot. I guess that is one of the reasons I am a food blogger? So when I was approached to do a weekend long fast for NoFood4You, to raise awareness for childhood hunger, I was apprehensive to say the least. But because it was going to be in the company with some incredible people and for a cause that I wholeheartedly, 100% believe in I got on board. I can tell you now that I am honored and feel so privileged to have been able to do this challenge.

Last Friday at lunch time I went to a local school (of 800 children at the school 750 of them are on the free or reduced lunch program) to have lunch. I was in good company. There were several different local news agencies and local business owners and kids. Lots and lots of kids. Anyway we all ate our lunch of fish sticks, potato has browns, carrot sticks, and milk and that was it until Monday morning!!! The idea behind all of this is that there are children who go to school and eat at school on the lunch programs but once they leave school for the weekend they have no access to food until school starts back up Monday morning and they are offered breakfast by the school.

And I did it! I lasted the whole way through. Thanks to a bit of Gatorade, a ton of support from my family and friends, and knowing that the reason behind doing this was to help raise awareness for childhood hunger! Was it easy? No way. Would I ever do this again? I really don’t think so unless ‘you know who you are’ really, really needed me too!!! This is right up there with some of the hardest things I have ever done in my life. I am not even really sure that if I was invited to do this challenge again that I would want to do it again. The ending result has been incredible. We were able to raise awareness and money (I think it was $12K) so in the end it was incredibly awarding.

I learned a lot over the weekend and that’s what this post is about. What I, personally, walked away with from this challenge and I can tell you it certainly wasn’t a full tummy!

1. I have never really, in all of my 40+ years, never been hungry. Oh yah, I have missed a meal here or there or really wanted a snack but have never really been hungry like I was past weekend. This was one of the most amazing things to realize. We all say that we are starving and that we can’t wait to eat but do any of us really know what that means? I now have a greater understanding of this. Was I starving. No way. I guess that takes weeks to happen but I sure was hungrier than I have ever been before.
2. I have more compassion than I give myself credit for. If I didn’t care about childhood hunger there is no way I could have completed this challenge. I always consider myself to be pretty selfish and make sure that I look out for myself and my family first but this showed me that there is a bit more to that.
3. I have an inner strength that I rarely use. I used it this weekend and there were times that it caught me by surprise. I wanted food and at times there seemed like no logical reason for me not to have it. Some of the arguments I had with myself were – no one would know, just a little taste, I’ve gone this far so that is good enough etc. But I resisted each and every time.
4. The final thing that I walk away with from this weekend is the knowledge that NO CHILD SHOULD EVER HAVE TO BE HUNGRY. It makes no difference why the child is hungry. Maybe the food stamps didn’t go as far as they could or should have, maybe the family can’t qualify for food stamps or public assistance, maybe the money just wasn’t there this month, maybe someone in the family is ill, maybe …and it can go on and on but in the end it really doesn’t matter. No child should feel how I felt last weekend. Remember it is not the child's fault and they are lacking the choice. I was hungry but that was the least of it. I was tired, so very, very tired and had no energy. I was cranky and short tempered. I was unable to focus or concentrate on even the simplest of tasks (I had to get my daughter to start figuring for me how long it had been since I had eaten. Simple math was a challenge). A child who is hungry is gong to have disciplinary and academic problems. If someone had told me that Monday morning I was going to get up and have PE that day or have to write a math test I would not have been very happy about it and would not have excelled at all. But I think that biggest thing was that I was my thoughts were all consumed with food. When I was going to get some next, what it was going to be, where I was going to eat it, what food I was missing the most, how happy I was going to be when I had it. I’m telling you not eating food makes you think about food all the time!!!

What can we do to make a difference and change this so that no child ever has to go hungry? Well that was one of the reasons that I did this hunger challenge. CCMI has a solution. They are running a backpack program where children who qualify by being on the free and reduced lunch program are given a backpack with enough food to get them through the weekend. Awesome huh? Sad thing is that out of 100 schools in our district they only have the funding right now to help 3. I bet if you looked there is a similar program in your community. Donate to the program. If your area doesn't have one and you would still like to help a child who is hungry you can donate to CCMI through here.

I will leave you with a recipe for strawberry ice cream! Over the weekend my family got me my belated birthday present…an ice cream maker!!! How lucky are they, oops I meant me, really I did!!! First recipe I made was for chocolate ice cream. I made that Sunday and I couldn’t even taste it until Monday morning!!! But boy was it ever good!!! Youngest daughter though loves strawberry so I made her some yesterday. Delicious.

Strawberry Ice Cream

1 pint ripe strawberries (hulled and sliced)
1/3 cup sugar
2 Tbsp fresh squeezed lemon juice
2/3 cup sugar
1 cup whole milk
2 cups heavy cream
1 tsp vanilla extract

• In a small bowl mix the strawberries with the lemon and the 1/3 cup of sugar. Allow to sit at room temperature and macerate for about 2 hrs.
• In a medium bowl mix whisk the 2/3 cup of sugar with whole milk until the sugar is dissolved (about 1-2 min). Stir in the heavy cream as well as some of the juice from the berries and the vanilla.
• Follow the directions for your ice cream maker.
• Add the strawberries in the remaining 5 minutes and then freeze until ready to use or enjoy!

I am really loving this ice cream maker so look for some more exciting recipes to come…

As Always…

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com

The Daring Baker’s Do Cheesecake!!!

This is probably going to be one of the worst posts that I have EVER written but there is a very good reason behind it. At the point that I am writing this I have gone without food for about 51 hrs. And yes, this was by choice.

I am participating in a hunger challenge called NoFood4You to help raise awareness for childhood hunger. You can learn more from my post here.

Anyway on to the Daring Baker challenge…

The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge.

Thanks Jenny for a great Challenge!!!

We were allowed huge creative license with this basic cheesecake recipe. I was going to make a margarita cheesecake. Had great plans for this but was not meant to be. T. had used up all the limes!!! But I had lemons!!! I ended up making an incredibly delicious Limoncello Cheesecake with lemon sauce. My modifications are in bold in the recipe.

Everyone loved this cheesecake! It has full of the typical cheesecake flavor. I had some trouble with the crust as I ran out of foil so it was slightly sogged. Otherwise it was great to work with and may make margarita cheesecake for a Cinco de Mayo potluck coming up…

Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake:

crust:
2 cups / 180 g graham cracker crumbs
1 stick / 4 oz butter, melted
2 tbsp. / 24 g sugar
1 tsp.vanilla extract (I used Lemon Extract)

cheesecake:
3 sticks of cream cheese, 8 oz each (total of 24 oz) room temperature
1 cup / 210 g sugar (squeezed together with zest of one lemon)
3 large eggs
1 cup / 8 oz heavy cream
1 tbsp. lemon juice
1 tbsp. vanilla extract (or the innards of a vanilla bean) (I used lemon extract)
1 tbsp liqueur, optional, but choose what will work well with your cheesecake (1 Tbsp Limoncello)

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (Gas Mark 4 = 180C = Moderate heat). Begin to boil a large pot of water for the water bath.

2. Mix together the crust ingredients and press into your preferred pan. You can press the crust just into the bottom, or up the sides of the pan too - baker's choice. Set crust aside.

3. Combine cream cheese and sugar in the bowl of a stand-mixer (or in a large bowl if using a hand-mixer) and cream together until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, fully incorporating each before adding the next. Make sure to scrape down the bowl in between each egg. Add heavy cream, vanilla, lemon juice, and alcohol and blend until smooth and creamy.

4. Pour batter into prepared crust and tap the pan on the counter a few times to bring all air bubbles to the surface. Place pan into a larger pan and pour boiling water into the larger pan until halfway up the side of the cheesecake pan. If cheesecake pan is not airtight, cover bottom securely with foil before adding water.

5. Bake 45 to 55 minutes, until it is almost done - this can be hard to judge, but you're looking for the cake to hold together, but still have a lot of jiggle to it in the center. You don't want it to be completely firm at this stage. Close the oven door, turn the heat off, and let rest in the cooling oven for one hour. This lets the cake finish cooking and cool down gently enough so that it won't crack on the top. After one hour, remove cheesecake from oven and lift carefully out of water bath. Let it finish cooling on the counter, and then cover and put in the fridge to chill. Once fully chilled, it is ready to serve.

Pan note: The creator of this recipe used to use a springform pan, but no matter how well she wrapped the thing in tin foil, water would always seep in and make the crust soggy. Now she uses one of those 1-use foil "casserole" shaped pans from the grocery store. They're 8 or 9 inches wide and really deep, and best of all, water-tight. When it comes time to serve, just cut the foil away.

Prep notes: While the actual making of this cheesecake is a minimal time commitment, it does need to bake for almost an hour, cool in the oven for an hour, and chill overnight before it is served. Please plan accordingly!

Lemon Sauce – About.com: Southern Food by Diane Rattray

This lemon sauce is made with lemon juice, cornstarch, sugar, and butter.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup boiling water
• 1 tablespoon finely grated lemon peel
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon butter

Preparation:

In a saucepan, combine sugar, cornstarch and salt. Add boiling water. Cook, stirring constantly, until mixture is thick and clear. Stir in lemon peel, lemon juice, and butter. Serve warm over dessert or bread pudding.

As Always…

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy

www.nofearentertaining.com

My Birthday and lots of crab…

Last weekend was my birthday and one of our great traditions is that the birthday person gets to choose what they want for a meal on the night of their birthday. I’m pretty lucky. T. is an incredible cook. Way better than I am so my birthday is always pretty exciting. This year I wanted something pretty decadent and that I would never order if we went to a restaurant but I also wanted something that the girls would eat too.

My choice this year was Shrimp and Crab Alfred. This was so delicious. Sadly though because I didn't make it I have no idea as to the recipe. Here is the picture though!

After this though we had some leftover crab that I did not want to go to waste. I decided that a quiche would be a great way to use it up. Add in some zucchini that was in my fridge and you have a great looking and easy meal. I was able to make this during the day and T. heated it up as I was at the kick off for the NoFood4You campaign!

Crab and Zucchini Quiche

Ingredients:

• 1 pastry shell (9 inch), partially baked
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 2 tablespoons onions, minced
• 1 zucchini grated and squeezed dry
• 1 cup crabmeat
• 1 tablespoon flour
• 1 1/2 cups Swiss cheese, shredded/divided and tossed with 1 T flour
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup half and half
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• dash white pepper or hot pepper sauce
• dash nutmeg

Directions:

• Have a 9-inch pastry shell partially baked.
• Sauté onions and zucchini until tender, about 4 minutes; mix with crabmeat and flour; set aside.
• Sprinkle 3/4 cup the cheese in the pie shell, then spread with crab mixture.
• Sprinkle with remaining 3/4 cup of cheese.
• Beat eggs, cream, salt, pepper, nutmeg, and parsley until mixed. Pour into shell. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until set and knife comes out clean at 350 degrees.

As Always…

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com

English Muffin Bread

See the great little nooks and crannies made specifically to hold all the butter and jelly (homemade by my FIL- Mulberry Jam)!!!

I love English Muffins! Something about the way the little nooks and crannies hold more butter then any other type of bread may be why or is it because of the wonderful slight sweetens that seems to came out when the muffin is toasted? With my love of these little muffins how is it that I have gone my entire life without hearing about English Muffin Bread????

When we were in PA over the girl’s spring break, T’s Mom made this for us and I was instantly hooked. Funny thing was, the day I was going to make it I tweeted (follow me on Twitter) about it and Andrea of Andrea's Recipes sent back a tweet about making it too. I guess other people had heard about this bread!!!

I had my MIL’s recipe but on it there was no rising time so I took a look at Andrea’s here and I was able to come up with a hybrid recipe that turned out great!!! I really need to try the recipe that Andrea was working on for Honey Wheat English Muffin Bread!!!

English Muffin Bread (makes 2 loaves) Adapted from Andrea’s Recipes and MIL’s recipe!

Ingredients:

4 tsp instant yeast or 2 pkgs. dry yeast
1Tbsp sugar
2 tsp. salt
2 cups milk
1/2 cup water
3-4 cups flour
1/4 tsp. baking soda

Directions:

• Heat the first 5 ingredients in a small sauce pan to 105-115°.
• In a large bowl mix 3 cups of the flour and the baking soda.
• Add the warm yeast mix to the flour and stir. Add more flour if needed to make a stiff batter.
• Pour into greased and corn mealed bread pans. Cover with a piece of plastic wrap sprayed with cooking oil and allow to rise in a warm draft free place for about 1 hour. After 45 minutes preheat oven to 375°.
• Bake for 25 minutes until nicely brown and pulled away from the sides.
• Remove from pans and cool on a wire rack.
• This can be served right away or toasted.

This has become a favorite and since we have been home I have been making this at least once a week!!!

As Always…

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com