January 2007 Cookbook Giveaway

I have another Food and Wine Quick From Scratch cookbook to give away to one lucky reader this month.




















Food and Wine's Quick From Scratch One-Dish Meals, which contains the following recipes I've blogged about:

Barbecued-Pork Burritos with Chopped Salad
Dirty Shrimp With Rice
Hot Muffuletta

If you want to know what other recipes are included, look here.

Just like the chicken cookbook, this has pictures of every recipe and the recipes are rather straightforward.

This is how it works - just leave a comment on this post. I just need an e-mail address (if your profile links to an e-mail, you don't need to type it out, I'll find it). Entry is open until the last day of the month. First chance I get after that, I'll draw the winner. Then I'll contact the winner for a mailing address and then I mail the book! I'll pay the shipping, of course.

I'll open this to everyone - in or out of the U.S. It will have to go by the least expensive method if an international reader wins.

Good luck!

*********Chrispy is the winner!*******************

Homemade baguettes? Oui, oui!

French Bread (Baguette)
Easy Bread Machine Recipes Copyright 1997

2 ½ C unbleached all-purpose flour
1 T rye flour
1 ½ tsp yeast (rapid rise – increase by 25% for regular active dry yeast)
1 C water
2 tsp salt
cornmeal for the baking sheet

Topping (optional) I didn't use the topping
1 egg yolk, beaten with 2 tsp water
poppy or sesame seeds

1. Load the ingredients in your machine (except the topping) and set it on the dough cycle. When the beeper sounds, remove the dough to a bowl, cover it and let it rest for 30 minutes.
2. Dump it out onto a lightly floured surface. The dough may be rather wet and sticky. It’s supposed to be. You may even want to wet your hands to handle the dough. Divide the dough into 2 equal portions (or make one long loaf; it depends on your oven). Use a rolling pin to roll each piece into an oblong about 4 to 5 inches wide, and maybe 14 to 16 inches long, and ¼ inch thick. Fold one long side over the other, press the sides together tightly, pinch the seam to seal it, and lay it, seam side down on a cornmeal-covered cookie sheet (or baguette pan). Taper the ends, pinching to seal them.
3. Sprinkle or brush the top with water. Ooops! I forgot this. Let the bread logs rise in a warm place until nearly doubled in bulk.
4. You can either leave the outsides plain or brush the tops with the egg wash topping and sprinkle with poppy or sesame seeds. Heat your oven to 500 degrees F.
5. With a sharp knife or razor blade, make 3 or 4 cuts about ¼ inch deep diagonally across the top of the risen bread logs. These are the ‘jets’ that help excess gas to escape during baking.
6. Bake for 25 to 35 minutes or until golden brown in a 500 degree F oven, with a pan of hot water in the bottom, or toss in some ice cubes after 5 minutes of baking. I only baked mine for 18 minutes. I might have been able to stand a few more minutes but it was cooked through.
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I needed a baguette for a recipe and well, with my son's peanut allergy bakery items are pretty much off-limits. So I made my own baguette - two baguettes actually.

I was pleased with the results. I'm not a baguette expert so I don't know if this was exactly a true baguette but I liked it. It was chewy and had excellent flavor. The breads from the supermarket bakeries around here all tend to be the same, just in different shapes. They have very little 'body' to them - if you have even a bit of moisture in your sandwich filling, the bread practically disintegrates.

I picked up this cookbook for $1.99 in Ollie's because it included recipes that fit my bread machine. I have a dual loaf bread machine and each loaf pan can only handle a 1 lb loaf, and I've found that many bread machine recipes start at the 1 1/2 lb size making it difficult for me to find recipes but this one either has recipes like this one that fit into any size bread machine or they give more than one version of the recipe if it needs to be scaled differently, for different sized machines. Well, they consider three sizes 1, 1 1/2 and 2 lbs. I'm not sure if bigger machines exist or not.

I'm definitely going to be baking more bread, that's for sure.

Blast From The Past: Picadillo a la Marlen from January 2006. I put this on the menu for next week since I have everything to make it. It's one of my favorites.

Question of the Day: Do you bake your own bread?

Handmade noodles

Homemade Noodles
Better Homes and Gardens Heritage Cook Book Copyright 1975

1 beaten egg
2 tablespoons milk
½ teaspoon salt
all-purpose flour (about 1 cup)

Mix egg, milk and salt. Add enough of the flour to make a stiff dough. Roll very thin on floured surface; let rest 20 minutes. Roll up loosely; slice ¼ inch wide. Unroll. Cur into desired lengths. Spread out; dry 2 hours. (Store in covered container until needed.) To cook, drop noodles into boiling liquid; cook, uncovered, 8 to 10 minutes. Makes 3 cups uncooked noodles.
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Even though I made this on the last day of 2006, it was much in keeping with my 2007 Culinary and Blogging Resolutions, particularly making things from scratch and not wasting as much food. After making the Crispy Herbed Chicken a couple of weeks ago, I used the carcass to make stock (although due to time constraints the stock was nearly as rich and flavorful as I would have liked). I had this stock and chicken in the freezer and carrots and celery (which was nearly past it's prime) in the fridge. I even had some fresh parsley.

But I wasn't excited about making soup. I haven't been excited about soup in a long time. You could blame the mild winter we're having but I haven't been in the mood for soup in a few years. Sure, I make a batch, order a bowl or even pop open a can of soup every now and then but not with any real enthusiasm. The thought of homemade noodles in soup actually got me excited about soup again.

Making noodles was super easy, it just took a bit of waiting time. Not really a problem since homemade soup usually cooks for at least a couple of hours. I'll definitely be making my own noodles again.

I just love this cookbook. I've owned it for years but I have so many cookbooks, even my favorites sometimes get pushed in the background but eventually I rediscover them. I had this one in my hands most of last weekend. The recipes are mostly traditional, yet they're not all 'everyday' recipes.

I don't know if they still do this, but way-back-when we sometimes had to bring dishes to school for a history or language class. This book would have been a great help, especially since we didn't have the internet back then. I still think this book would be great for a homeschooler or teacher to use since it combines history and cooking and there are recipes from many different ethnicities. This is a great book for people who like to 'read' cookbooks (like a novel).

It can still be found on ebay and used book sites. Better Homes and Gardens also has a 'Heritage of America' cookbook that came out in the 90s so don't get confused.

And the moment you've all been waiting for..............

Hilary (from Nosh With Me) is the winner of the Food and Wine Quick From Scratch Chicken Cookbook from the December Cookbook Giveaway. Stay tuned for another giveaway announcement soon.

Blast From The Past: My Mother’s Tuesday Night Meatball Soup from February 2006, one of the few soups I've made since starting this blog.

Question of the Day: What is your favorite soup?

Starting the year off right

Multigrain and Cherry Muffins
Better Homes and Gardens New Dieter’s Cookbook Copyright 2003

1 cup seven-grain cereal
1 cup dried tart cherries
½ cup packed brown sugar
¼ cup cooking oil
1 ¼ cups buttermilk or sour milk I used sour milk (lemon juice + milk)
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon crystallized ginger, finely chopped, or 1 teaspoon ground ginger I used ground ginger
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 slightly beaten egg

1. Grease 12 muffin-top cups or sixteen 2 ½-inch muffin cups; set aside. In a medium bowl combine seven-grain cereal, dried cherries, brown sugar, and oil. Pour buttermilk over cereal mixture; let stand for 30 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, in a large bowl combine whole wheat flour, baking powder, ginger, baking soda, salt and nutmeg. Make a well in the center of the flour mixture; set aside.
3. Stir beaten egg into buttermilk mixture. Add buttermilk mixture all at once to flour mixture. Stir just until moistened (batter should be lumpy). Spoon batter into prepared muffin-top cups or muffin cups, filling each muffin-top cup almost full or each muffin cup ¾ ways full.
4. Bake in a 400 degree oven until golden. (Allow about 12 minutes for muffin-top cups or 15 to 18 minutes for 2 ½-inch muffins.) Cool in cups on a wire rack for 5 minutes. Remove from cups; serve warm.
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I thought I would start the year out right and make an antioxidant rich food for Sweetnick's ARF Tuesdays. I bought these dried cherries to use in the White Fudge but decided against that. I think they were better suited in these muffins. I had the seven-grain cereal in the freezer for a while since I bought it to use as a hot cereal and really didn't care for it.

These muffins had good flavor, but they were a little bit gritty from the cereal. Maybe it would be better to soak the cereal mixture overnight instead of just 30 minutes, like with the Overnight Oatmeal Muffins. They were still pretty good, you know, for a 'healthy' baked good. With the cherries, the grains and the ginger, these muffins are practically guilt-free.

Better Homes and Gardens New Dieter’s Cookbook is definitely one of my favorite cookbooks. I think this is the ninth recipe I've tried from it and I have a mile-long list of other recipes I want to try from this book. The book has about 500 recipes, each one with a picture. There are recipes for practically everything - brunches, kid's favorites, appetizers, breads, entrées, desserts, sandwiches, etc. I think anyone who is into healthy eating would love this book. I think they could have given it a better name - something focusing on the healthiness of the food. This book isn't just for 'dieters'.

Blast From the Past: Memphis-Style Pork Chops from November 2006, from this same cookbook. I'm making these again this week. I've been craving them.

Question of the Day: Would you buy this book as a gift or would you be afraid that the recipient might be offended by the term 'dieter'?

My 2007 Culinary and Blogging Resolutions

Here we go again:

1. Respond to comments more regularly. I read them all, that's for certain, but I haven't been responding to most comments personally because I wasn't sure I could keep up when I get busy. I had sort of an all-or-nothing attitude about it but I'm just going to try to do the best I can.
2. Participate in more food blog events.
3. Spend more time describing the cookbooks I'm using. They kind of get lost in the background but I'll try to spotlight them a little bit more.
4. Make homemade marshmallows. Carried over from last year's resolutions.
5. Can something. Anything. Maybe jam, maybe pickles. Carried over from last year's resolutions.
6. Use my electric smoker. Carried over from last year's resolutions.
7. Make homemade pierogis. I tried it once and the result wasn't too spectacular but I'm going to try again.
8. Cook from scratch more often. Try to make things I normally might buy if it's healthier or more frugal or maybe just for the heck of it to see if I can make something from scratch.
9. Waste less. I waste too much food.
10. Experiment with more yeast breads. Last year was really the first year I worked with yeast and I did use it a lot but I'd like use it even more this year, maybe even break free from the bread machine.

Hopefully I'll be more than 50 percent successful this year. I think this list is pretty doable but I thought that last year too.

Happy New Year!