Bread

I LOVE BREAD!  Though I really should not admit that but I really do.  I am also very picky about my bread and not having Grandma Sycamore's bread here in Virginia I have cut back on my bread intake.  We do have a wonderful grocery store with a bakery that does make homemade bread that I really enjoy but it gets expensive at times and it is a white bread which I am trying to eat more half wheat/half white bread.  I have a yummy no knead bread recipe that I really like but I have to plan ahead which I am not always good about.  I will post pictures of that bread another time.  Today I am sharing bread that I learned to make from a wonderful neighbor of mine in Utah.  I grew up in 4-H and making bread for the county fairs with my mom but it was a frustrating process for both her and I.  I was not exactly the most patient baker when younger, but now I see the value more and have learned more about baking bread.  It is very satisfying pulling out a yummy loaf of bread out of the oven, yet it is also very disappointing after putting so much work and time into bread to have it come out of the oven hard, fallen or just tasting like yeast.  My neighbor has an amazing blog with several yummy recipes including this bread recipe.  Since she already has the recipe, process and pictures of it all I will just link you up to her blog.   ENJOY!  Meanwhile, I am going to enjoy another piece of bread!

Momzoo baking bread

Waffles

Almost every morning my children ask me to make waffles.  My stepsister shared her family recipe with me and it makes light, fluffy, yummy waffles.  

 

Mix 1 cup milk, 1/2 cup buttermilk, 1/4 cup coconut oil or canola oil (but I prefer coconut it makes them a little sweeter), 1 1/2 cups of flour, 1 Tbsp baking powder, 1 Tbsp sugar, 1 tsp vanilla, 1 tsp salt, and 4 egg yolks.

Then beat the 4 egg whites until they have soft peaks.

Fold the beaten egg whites into the batter.  It should be bubbly, which is what makes the waffles so light and fluffy. 

Then I bake them in this Waring Pro waffle maker that flips the waffle as you cook it.   

Some days the kids will eat two full waffles.  I love that they eat a good breakfast. 

DOUGHNUTS!!

Doughnuts all shaped and rising for that nice light, fluffy texture

The last couple of days I have been craving doughnuts.  Probably because I started a new challenge with some of my siblings and one of our goals is to not eat sugar or sweet treats so of course that is all that I am craving.  Another reason could be that I have been thinking back to days of cooking with my cousin and one of our favorite things to make was doughnuts.  Unfortunately, he gave me his recipe so I couldn't resist but to make a batch.  I halved the recipe but still ended up with too many doughnuts for my family to eat but we tried our best.

Dark chocolate glaze - YUMMY!

Cooking them

Chocolate with sprinkles, my weakness

Now, who to share them with?

MMMM, they were as yummy as I remembered!

Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup

One of my favorite things to eat especially when I am sick, or need comfort food or in the middle of winter is my grandmas famous chicken noodle soup.  Unfortunately moving to Virgina there are some brands that I can not get like I could in Utah - creamies, my favorite grandma sycamore's bread, danish dessert, and kluski noodles.  So I had to improvise a bit and use my homemade noodles.  (More to come on homemade bread since I really can't find anything yet that matches grandma sycamores.)  Being the middle of winter and quite cold I decided to make it last night.  

Ingredients

chicken - boiled

noodles - 

homemade or any type of egg noodles, kluski are the best

chicken broth

cream of chicken soup -  

regular size or family size depending on how much you want to make

carrots - 

normally we didn't use carrots but I was trying to be good and add some vegetables

Add the cream of chicken soup to your crockpot or pan and then add some chicken broth, how much broth you add all depends on you and how thick you want the soup to be.  I like a creamier, thicker soup so I use about 1 to 1 1/2 cups.  

Whisk it all together until it is smooth and creamy.

Shred the chicken and pepper it for seasoning and add to the creamy mixture.

The main issue I have with carrots in my soup is that once carrots are cooked they are mushy.   Texture is a really big deal to me when it comes to food.  So I chopped the carrots into pretty small pieces and then just added them to the soup.  They cooked in the crockpot for about an hour on high and that is all.  To me they were perfect, soft but still firm.  My husband though likes them a little more cooked.  If you wanted to cook them a little before hand you certainly could. 

The homemade noodles I only cooked for about a minute and a half.  Approximately half the time you would normally cook your noodles.  They will cook a little in the crockpot and you want them to stay al dente and not too done.  Then add them to the crockpot.   Once everything is added just stir it all up then add more pepper and cook it on high in the crockpot for about an hour.  

Always makes me feel better.  YUMMY!!

Homemade Pasta

Ingredients

4 eggs

3 1/2 cups of flour

1 Tbsp. of milk

1/2 tsp. of salt

This recipe makes a lot of pasta.  I usually half it for my family and we have plenty.  I know my cousin has frozen it before but it really is best fresh.  You can refrigerate it for a few hours but since it only takes me about 30 minutes to make I just prefer to make it a little before I start dinner.

You want to put the flour and salt in your bowl then make a well in the middle to put the eggs into and last add the milk.  You can just use water also.  The milk and water is just to help get the right consistency.  These eggs are extra large eggs, the size of the egg makes in a difference in how much milk or water to use.  

Mix it until it is mixed together then I put on my dough hook to knead it a little.  It looks more crumbly than dough but then you drop it onto a surface and knead it by hand and it should stick together at that point.  If it is too dry add a little milk or water and mix it again.  If it is too sticky it is hard to roll so you will want to add flour.  Like rolls or bread it just takes practice to get the right texture.  

Once it is kneaded into a nice ball you will want to separate it into two pieces for half a batch or 4 pieces if you are making a full batch.  

Roll it out a little, mostly just enough to fit it into the roller. 

 This is why I love homemade pasta.  It is the attachment to my Kitchen Aid mixer and it makes rolling out the pasta so quick and easy.  Not the cheapest investment but worth every penny for me.  I bought the combo pack with the roller and then two cutters, one for spaghetti and one for thicker noodles. 
You can buy a hand roller for cheaper and some people roll it out by hand but it takes a bit to get the dough as thin as you would want it.  The roller starts out at a 1 setting and goes to a 7 which would be really thin pasta like angel hair.  You want to roll it out on setting 1 and 2 first.

The dough after the first pass through the roller on the #1 setting.  Pretty crumbly and crazy.  Looking yummy so far right?

Fold it in half and you can add any of the little pieces that came off in the first pass then put it through the roller again at the #1 setting.  You will need to continue to do this several times.  Pass it through then fold and pass it through again.  Then roll it out on the #1 setting and then without folding it roll it out on the #2 setting.  Then fold it and roll it out on the #1 setting.  You will want to keep rolling it out and try to switch it horizontal to get a nice edge to it also. 

Starting to look a lot more like pasta.  You need to keep rolling it out until the pasta does not have any more holes or cracks in it.  I seriously could just roll pasta out for an hour, it smells yummy and is quite hypnotic.  However when I have children whining in the background about how hungry they are it brings me back to reality.  This is looking pretty good but I fold it and roll it out a few more times after this. 

This is now finished and ready to be rolled out thinner.  So you roll it out on #2 then move up to #3, #4, #5 as thin as you want to go.  I was making this for homemade soup so I stopped at 5.  Usually I like a little thinner pasta so spaghetti I usually go to #6. 

This is the length after rolling it to #5.  The pasta can get really long you just want to feed it carefully so I doesn't bend and then hold it as it comes out of the roller.  The pasta is really quite strong even though it is very thin.  If you rolled it out long enough you will not have any holes in it.  Cut this to the length you want your noodles. 

Then put it through the cutter to make the strips.  With a pasta cutter you can make ravioli and lasagna, I need to figure out how to roll it to make a penne.  Right now I mostly stick to the fettuccine and spaghetti.  You only need to cook your homemade pasta about 3 minutes.  Keep checking it for consistency you want. 

Beef Stroganoff

Growing up I was definitely a picky eater.  As I have gotten older and wiser I might add I am more willing to try new things and quite enjoy cooking and experimenting.  One thing I remember my mother making that I didn't really care for much but I love now is Beef Stroganoff.  I've combined a couple of different recipes to come up with my stroganoff that I enjoy the most so I thought I would share it.

(and I was making it for dinner tonight) 

 

Ingredients

1 1/2 lbs of steak, (round, beef stew, sirloin) cut into strips

salt and pepper and garlic powder

flour

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoons butter

1/2 large sweet onion, sliced (walla walla are my favorite)

1 cup of beef broth

1 can 10 3/4 oz. of cream of mushroom soup

1 cup of sour cream

egg noodles

 

Take your meat cut up into strips and add salt, pepper and about 1 tsp. of garlic powder - basically season it as much as you prefer.   I used sirloin steak since I had some in the freezer that needed to be used and my grill is covered in snow so I didn't feel like grilling it. 

 

Then sprinkle it with enough flour to lightly coat it.   Then heat up the butter and olive oil in a pan and add the meat.  Cook just enough to brown the meat on both sides.  

Remove meat and put into a crockpot or on another plate if you are in a hurry and not planning on cooking it all day.  Then add the onions right to the pan with the drippings.  If my husband at all like mushrooms I would also be adding some sliced up mushrooms but since he despises them I leave them out.  I have at times cooked some up and then added them only to my dish at the end but I didn't have any in the refrigerator since he cringes at even the thought of them by his other food.  

When the onions are just starting to get softened and cooked a little sprinkle about 1 Tbsp. of flour in the pan with them and then either add them to the crockpot or add the meat back to the pan with them.  Next add the beef broth and cream of mushroom soup to the meat mixture in either the pan or crockpot.  

In the crockpot I cook it on low for 6 hours.  On the stove in the pan cook on low for about 30 minutes.  Add the sour cream and cook on low for another hour in the crockpot or just long enough for it to heat up on the stove top.   

 Serve over the egg noodles, already cooked according to the package.  I usually make homemade pasta noodles for this but since I am moving and have dried pasta I need to use up I ended up using it with some macaroni.  

YUMMY!