Creamy Hot Cocoa

For quite a few years, we would say that we wanted to do this and that Christmas activity or craft, but then the season would get away from us and then it was spring again.  A lot of things got left undone.

This year I printed calendars for November and December.  I started by filling in the special days, like holidays and birthdays.  Then I added in things like grocery shopping, orthodontist appointments, etc...  When that was finished, I gathered the kids and we brainstormed ideas to fill the Christmas part of the calendar. 

Pibb's birthday is early in December and we don't begin decorating or celebrating Christmas until afterward.  We want to keep his birthday special and separate from the rest of the holiday rush. 

So we had about two weeks of Christmas activities to come up with and I think we did admirably!  We planned things like making paper chain garlands, folded paper snowflakes and Lego ornaments.  We also planned visits to the Festival of Trains (a local model railroad group sets up huge, interactive displays) and a hot cocoa tasting week with a different homemade cocoa each day! 

This week is Hot Cocoa Tasting Week and yesterday was our first attempt at homemade cocoa.  It was a huge success!  Everyone liked it, the mix was crazy simple and it made a large batch (about 25 servings) for not a large amount of cash.  If you've got a few minutes, I recommend you throw this together immediately!

Creamy Hot Cocoa Mix

4 C nonfat dry milk
1 1/2 C sugar
1 C non-dairy creamer
2/3 C cocoa powder
4 oz instant chocolate fudge pudding

Mix all together in a large bowl or jar, stirring well to combine.

Add approximately 1/4 C mix to 8 oz boiling water and stir. 

That's it.  Seriously. 

I did find that I had to buy name brand pudding, since I couldn't find a chocolate fudge version in my local store brand, but at a whopping $ .79, I think I can handle the cost.  Especially since that one ingredient seemed to take this from okay cocoa to really good cocoa! 

Today's treat is Mocha Cocoa and if it goes well, I'll post that recipe tomorrow. 

And then there were five...

I totally slacked.  I admit it.  Last week Friday was Pibb's birthday and I completely forgot to blog him.  My apologies.

10  years ago, that little boy came into this world spinning like a bullet (not an exaggeration) and he's barely slowed down since. 

In between Scooter's birth and my becoming pregnant with Pibb we suffered two devastating miscarriages.  I'd undergone a barrage of tests to help determine the cause and when we found out I was pregnant again my midwife was there, ready to help our baby have the best chance he possibly could.  After a very scary pregnancy and more than a few panic attacks, we welcomed him into the world with tears streaming down our faces.

He's growing up to be quite amazing!  He:

• is a little bit of a perfectionist, but only when it suits him to be.
• loves food and would eat all day if we let him.
• Has a stuffed monkey named Bobo.  We were shopping one day when he was a little under two years old and he saw Bobo on the shelf; it was love at first sight!  Bobo is missing his nose thanks to an overly rambunctious puppy, but Pibb still sleeps with him every night. 
• likes to take apart small appliances and, on more than one occasion, has had to be stopped from taking apart something we actually still use.
• is into Legos in a big way.  Some days we barely see him because he's so occupied with whatever he happens to be building at the moment.
• has a bit of snarky streak and isn't afraid to let a few choice remarks slip out, usually with a sly grin and gleam of mischief in his eyes.
• has a natural inclination towards math, science and other logical pursuits. 
• enjoys reading and has spent many hours curled up under a blanket at the end of the couch, just reading the days away.
• discovered a few months ago that my big old Canon is way more fun to play with than the Kodak EasyShare the kids usually use.  I've had to pry it away from him a few times.
• is working his way through the Bread Baker's Apprentice with me and is at least as interested in the science of baking as the eating of it.

Oh yeah, he's definitely amazing!  I love that kid like crazy!

Goodbye blue box!

I started cooking most of our food from scratch about 5 years ago and it's been great.  The transition from mostly convenience foods to mostly from scratch hasn't always been smooth, but what didn't work has simply proved a learning experience and has led us to something that does work.  There are still a few things I buy rather than make, but mostly I cook.  A lot. 

Over the past few years I've made at least two dozen different macaroni and cheese recipes.  I've tried baked ones, stove top versions and even a couple that were cooked in the crock pot.  I've tried ones with milk, evaporated milk and heavy cream.  I've tried various kinds of cheeses and different spices and seasonings, to no avail.  I simply couldn't come up with one that the kids would accept.

So when I discovered foodgawker.com, the first thing I searched for was macaroni and cheese.  Of the 163 results that came up, only a few looked like something I'd really want to make.  I'm not looking for a gourmet recipe, I don't want to buy specialty cheeses and use exotic spices.  I'm looking for a simple, delicious comfort food type recipe. 

Today, I think I've found that recipe.  Here is the recipe I used, called Stove Top Macaroni & Cheese.  I had never made a recipe on the stove top that called for egg before, so I was curious to see how it would go.  The only thing I did differently than the recipe is that I left out the hot sauce. 

I think I overthickened the sauce just a bit, because the finished macaroni was a little thicker than I'd like and didn't have a much of a saucy texture.  But that was my only issue and it's one that's easily fixed, just by cooking it a little less next time. 

The kids liked it pretty well, too!  So today I'm saying goodbye to the blue boxes and hello to yet another thing I can make from scratch!

Bagel Love

Yesterday Pibb and I started our third BBA Challenge project - bagels.  I've been making bagels for a few years now, and they've been good.  But not great.  So when I realized that Peter Reinhart had a bagel recipe in this book, I was ready to jump at the chance to try it. 

Opposite of the other recipes we've tried so far, this one has a large time commitment on the first day and a very small one the second day.  So yesterday we made the sponge, which involves letting a mix of yeast, flour and water sit at room temperature until it's foamy and risen, about 2 hours.  Our house is cold, so I set the bowl next to the stove, where I was also rising Kaiser rolls.  After the sponge was done, we added the rest of the yeast, flour and other ingredients to make a very stiff dough. 

The book said to knead the dough for 10 minutes, but I actually kneaded about 12 as I wasn't satisfied with the dough at 10 minutes.  After the dough was ready we split it into 12 equal portions and let it rest for about half an hour.  Then the fun part - shaping! 

If you've ever played with playdough, you are already very nearly a bagel shaping expert and we've spent many hours rolling, shaping and sculpting with play dough, so the shaping was pretty simple.  We rolled the dough balls into long snakes, wrapped them around our hands and just worked the ends in.  Then it was into the fridge to retard (or a very long, slow rise) overnight. 

All we did today was boil and bake the bagels - less than 15 minutes of hands on work.  The bagels don't need to come out of the fridge until you're ready to boil them, so you could have them boiled, baked and ready to eat in less than 30 minutes, if you want to eat them super hot!  We let them rest about 20 minutes before we ate them today and it was the perfect.

 The book suggests that the formed bagels can sit in the fridge up to 48 hours before being boiled and baked, so these would be great for busy weekends, holidays or brunch with guests. 

Here's how this recipe differed from my typical bagel recipe: The ones I normally make are start to finish, two and a half hours, tops. That means that the dough is a little tougher and the shape is lumpier than a typical bakery bagel. With this recipe, the overnight rest in the fridge gave the dough time to even out and relax, making these bagels very smooth and "professional" looking. My typical recipe also wants the bagels to be flipped over halfway through baking, leaving them flat on both the top and bottom. These are baked at a much higher temperature, for a shorter time and don't get flipped. Again, that leads to a more professional appearance.

These are the bagels I normally make - good, but not amazing.



Peter Reinhart's Bread Baker's Apprentice bagels - AMAZING!

The color in this picture is a little washed out, the bagels were more toasty golden in color.  Pibb ate the first bite and I could tell just from the sound of the crust as he bit into it that these were going to be way better than the others.  Bryant took the next bite and it was immediately clear that the other bagels were not going to be gracing out table again anytime soon, if ever. 

As you can see in the picture, half the bagels were left plain and the other half were given a sprinkle of homemade "everything" blend.  The blend was a little salty, but otherwise, crazy good! 

All in all, I'd call this one a huge success! 

Anadama Bread

Here it is - the very first bread from Peter Reinhart's Bread Baker's Apprentice.  Anadama bread is a traditional New England bread made with molasses and corn meal.  It does take two days to make, but the time commitment on the first day is less than five minutes, so it's really a one day bread that takes a tiny bit of forethought and planning. 

Last night, Pibb and I got our soaker going by mixing coarse corn meal and tepid water in a bowl.  We covered it with plastic wrap and left it on the counter overnight.  Seriously simple stuff. 

Today the real work happened!  We started by mixing the soaker with part of the flour, the salt, yeast and additional water.  That mix sat on the counter until it started to bubble a bit, about an hour.  Then we added in the rest of the ingredients and additional flour.  A 10 minute knead and it was ready to rise. 

After about an hour and a half the dough had doubled in size and was ready to be shaped into loaves.  We followed the shaping instructions in the book, which were very simple and easy to follow, although slightly different than my usual method.  The loaves were put on the back of the stove (where it's reasonably warm) and allowed to rise for another hour or so until they were just cresting the top of the loaf pans.

They baked just shy of 45 minutes and then the hardest part - we had to wait a full hour before slicing into them!  But oh, it was worth the wait!  

Pibb is quite proud of his bread and I'm pretty proud of it, too!  He's never made bread before, so it was a whole new experience for him. And while he's seen me make it many times, he's never had the fun of mixing, working the dough, waiting for it to rise and then the satisfaction of that first bite of bread made with his own two hands!

I'm calling this bread a complete success and will very likely work it into my regular rotation.  Bryant has already come out of his office and asked for seconds and all the kids loved their slices!  I think tomorrow I might slice the second loaf, toast it and use it for BLTs for lunch!

BBA Challenge

Wow - over a month since I posted last?  That's crazy!  But it's been a crazy month, so I guess it makes sense. 

If you follow me on Facebook you've probably seen me talk about the Bread Baker's Apprentice (the book) and the BBA Challenge.  Peter Reinhart's book, the Bread Baker's Apprentice, has become an epitome of bread making excellence and the BBA is a challenge to bake every single bread from the book, in the order they're listed. 

While I'm not officially participating in the challenge, I am challenging myself to make all the breads from this wonderful book!  The breads are listed in alphabetical order in the book to make finding what you're looking for easier, so that's the order I'll be baking them in.  Tonight the fun begins with Anadama bread!  Pibb is going to help me make the breads, and I'll post photos and a review of each bread as I go.

If you happen to be in this neck of the woods, perhaps I'll even let you have a taste of whatever I'm making at the moment! 

Monkey Slices

For a long time now I've been frequenting a lovely website called craftgawker - it is exactly what it sounds like!  Near the bottom of the page there's the typical buttons for various social media sites and a short list of other "gawker" websites. 

I recently discovered foodgawker - the food version of craftgawker.  It is a treasure trove of gorgeous food photography and nearly every picture has a recipe!  A few of them are more about food styling then food making, but those are pretty interesting, too. 

So while I was gawking I happened upon a photo of a loaf of bread that looked unlike anything I'd seen before.  If that wasn't enough to catch my attention, the name would have been!  It was called Cinnamon Sugar Pull Apart Bread.  YUM!



Forgive my crappy, fluorescent light at night photo, please.
 Food photography is not my forte, although I'm determined to improve at it.

 Here is the recipe I used (with way better pictures), should you feel compelled to make this yourself.  A word of warning, though - the pull apart nature of the bread is very much like Monkey Bread and lends itself to overindulgence. 

If you follow the directions for slicing the dough and end up with 36 slices, each slice is a whopping 2 ppv.  It's not super healthy, but it is delicious and has a sort of built in portion gauge since you know how many points each slice is.

I recommend eating this while it's warm, but the kids enjoyed it the following morning, too. 

Mom's Diner



Photo by The Boy, Autumn 2010


One popular breakfast around here is Eggs to Order.  In the past I've just asked each person what they wanted and kept a list, but lately that's felt a bit boring.  Knowing I was going to make eggs to order for breakfast this week, I decided to make a restaurant style menu.

In Word I created a document that has check-boxes for various kinds of eggs (sunny side, over easy, omelet, etc...) and side dishes, as well as beverages.  Last night after dinner I handed them out and asked Bryant and the kids to fill them in, then I used them this morning as I was making breakfast.

It was so much fun!  I'm thinking that I will ask for opinions tonight and adjust the menu as suggested.  After a couple uses, once I've got it down just the way we want it, I'll print clean ones and laminate them.  Then we can use them over and over again with dry-erase markers!

Kaiser Rolls

This recipe is a recent favorite of ours - I've made it three times in the last week!  It's another good one for those of you who might be a little nervous about working with yeast breads because it's quite simple and forgiving.  So what are you waiting for?

Kaiser Rolls
Makes 16 sandwich rolls or 32 small-ish dinner rolls
6 PPV each if you make 16 rolls

5 tsp active dry yeast, or two of the little packets
2 C warm water, divided
4 T sugar, divided
1/3 C canola oil
2 tsp salt
6 - 6 1/2 C all purpose flour
1 egg white
2 tsp cold water
Optional: Poppy or sesame seeds

In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in 1/2 C water.  I don't bother with precise measurements here - I use hot tap water and I usually get my whole 2 C of water and just pour in about a quarter of it, saving the rest for use in a few minutes.  Add 1 Tbsp sugar and let stand about 5 minutes.  The yeast should bloom and look a bit foamy or spongy.

Add the oil, salt, remaining water, sugar.  It should look like this -

Then toss in about 4 cups of the flour and mix until it's fully incorporated and somewhat smooth.

Stir in enough of the additional flour to make a soft dough.  I usually end up using almost exactly 6 C, so if you're not sure, that's a good starting place.

Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead until it's smooth and elastic, about 6 - 8 minutes.

Place the kneaded dough into a well greased bowl and cover it with small, thin-ish towel.  Let it sit in a warm spot for about an hour, or until it's doubled in size.  When it's this warm out, I just leave it on the counter in the sunshine, but in the winter I turn the oven on to 200*.  When it gets up to temperature, I turn it off and then let my dough rise on the stovetop near the oven vent. 

When it's done rising, have a small child whip the towel off the top in grand fashion.  It adds so much to the experience!

Now you get the fun of punching down the dough!  I typically just dump it out onto a lightly floured surface and fold it into itself, pushing the gas out as I go.  Then it's very easy to cut it into the appropriate number of pieces.  Today I'm making the rolls to be used in place of regular bread in sandwiches, so I cut my dough into 16 pieces.

Then, with floured hands, pull the dough down and tuck it under the roll until you have a smooth surface.  Or, just roughly shape them into balls, whichever your preference.  Either way, they should be about this size, if you're doing 16.

Place the dough balls on greased cookie sheets, at least 2 inches apart.  They will probably grow together a little, but that's okay, it just adds to the fun later when you get to decide if the grown together rolls count as one sandwich or two!

Let them rise, covered again, for another 30 minutes or so - just enough to puff up a bit.  They won't grow dramatically during this time, but it's important to let them rest for good gluten development.  Near the end of that rise time, preheat the oven to 400*. 

Beat the egg white with the 2 tsp cold water (again, just cold tap water) until just frothy and use a pastry brush to paint the egg wash onto the rolls.  If you want to use seeds, now is the time to sprinkle them across the top of your rolls.  In addition to seeds, you might consider things like garlic bread seasoning (actually, I hadn't thought of it before, but that would be amazing added right into the dough...) or herbs.

With a pair of sharp scissors, cut a 1/4 inch deep cross in the top of each roll.  It seems weird, I know, but once they have the wash on them, they're slippery and a knife just isn't going to be practical.  Trust me, use the scissors. 

I don't have a pair of kitchen snips, so I use my regular everyday scissors and just wash the blades in hot, soapy water afterwards.  As always, though, feel free to put your own personal touch on them; use a kaiser roll stamp (like this one), cut stripes instead of crosses or skip the cutting altogether.  The important thing isn't what they look like so much as that you have the fun of creating something so delicious from such humble ingredients (and then the joy of sharing that deliciousness with your family and friends)!

Bake the rolls for 18 - 20 minutes or until as deeply golden as you like them.  Remove the rolls from the pan onto a wire rack to cool completely.  You should end up with something like this:

See that little guy on the bottom rack?  That one in the middle?  Pookie shaped that one himself - he's crazy proud of it and I'm a little afraid he won't want to eat it later!

So there you have it - how to make extremely versatile rolls in just a few short hours with minimal work or ingredients! 

The little things

There are many ways in which I'm a lucky girl.  I have a wonderful family and home, I'm living the life I want and I have an abundance of extended family and friends that I enjoy spending time with.

And that's just the big stuff!  I could go on all day about little, seemingly insignificant things that make my life amazing and special.

But today I want to mention one specific thing. Well, one specific person...

Bryant. 

I'm inclined to just do things myself and sometimes I forget that I can lean on him when I need a little extra support.  Not through any fault of his, I just sometimes get caught up in what I've got going on in my own life and I take him for granted. 

Yesterday I was forcibly reminded of just how blessed I am to have him.  I was washing a bunch of champagne flutes and wine goblets (we don't use them often, so they always need a quick scrub before use) and I shattered one.  A piece of glass gouged into my finger, leaving me bleeding quite a bit.  I yelled for Bryant and he came rushing to my aid.  He held a towel on my hand, applied a bandage and then cleaned the broken glass out of the sink.

It wasn't a huge moment; my hand is fine and I could have put a bandage on it myself.  I could have cleaned up the glass and calmed the kids fears.

But it sure was nice to know I didn't have to do it all myself.  I really should try to remember it more often.