Pasta Night

Monday is still Pasta Night at our house. Tonight I tried three new recipes for our dinner.

The main dish was Pioneer Woman's Fettuccine Alfredo. It was pretty good, although not as good as I had hoped it would be. It was good enough that I will probably try it again sometime. Maybe next time I can get it just right.

For our vegetable, I tried used a Food Network recipe for Sauteed Broccoli. I really liked this one. Hopefully the next time I make it it will turn out as well as it did tonight.

I wanted to have french bread with our pasta tonight. I have made this recipe from Our Best Bites before, but I'm trying to use whole wheat more often (and less sugar) in my baking, so I did a quick search and tried this recipe for Whole Wheat French Bread. It uses 2 cups white flour and 2 cups whole wheat flour. It was okay, but not great. I think I'll keep looking for the perfect recipe.

ps we also had mandarin oranges with dinner

Cheesy Pepperoni Pizza Quick Bread

Ginger shared a link to this recipe recently, and I gave it a shot tonight. Maxwell and Bentley really liked it. John and I thought it was a little salty. I want to try it with sausage instead of the pepperoni, so we'll see how that goes. It took longer than I thought it would, because you are supposed to cool it for 30 minutes before you eat the bread.

Homemade Flour Tortillas

I have a thing for good flour tortillas. However, back in January we started paying more attention to trans fat, and I found out that all of the flour tortillas at our grocery store had trans fat in them. (I've recently discovered that some of the uncooked flour tortillas at a few stores do NOT have trans fat - hurray!) We tried using corn tortillas for a while, and that was fine until near the end of my pregnancy. I started to have dreams about flour tortillas. Seriously.

One night, I was craving something. I narrowed it down to Sees and flour tortillas, but only mentioned chocolate to John. He was sympathetic, and offered to go to the mall to get some Sees for me. What a guy! However, I decided that even more than chocolate, I wanted to eat a flour tortilla. (Weird?) When I told John, he offered to MAKE me tortillas. I had tried several times before, but they always turned out tough. John did a quick search online, and found this recipe. Instead of going out to buy candy, he spent the rest of the evening making me tortillas. And boy were they good! Soft and so yummy. He made them for me again the night that I came home from the hospital; and a couple of nights ago he helped me make some for dinner.

They're really good plain, but we had most of them with refried beans, cheese, and taco sauce. Anyway, here's the recipe. Oh - the site it's from, Rockin Robin's Cooking Mexican Recipes, has some other recipes I'm hoping to try.

Homemade Flour Tortillas

Ingredients:
2 cups white flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. vegetable oil
3/4 cup warm water

Directions:
Combine the flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl. In another bowl combine the warm water and oil. Add the water/oil mixture to the flour mixture, one tablespoon at a time and mix the dough with a fork. Once the water is mixed in, add another tablespoon of water and repeat the process until all the water is mixed into the dough. The dough will be sticky.

Lightly flour a wooden cutting board and knead the dough for about 5 minutes. If the dough is too sticky, add a little flour, but you want the dough to stay soft.

Place the dough back into the bowl and cover it with a damp towel or damp paper towel. Let the dough rest for 20 minutes.

Divide the dough into golf-ball-size balls by pinching off the dough with your thumb and fore finger. Form each ball into a nice ball shape.

Place the balls on a flat dish making sure they don't touch each other and cover with the damp cloth.

Let the dough rest again for 10 minutes.

Preheat a skillet to medium high heat.

Lightly dust a cutting board or other rolling surface with flour. Use your hands to pat a ball into a circle, then use a rolling pin to roll the dough out until it is about 1/8 thick. Add more flour if you need to as you roll the dough out.

Once you have rolled out the tortilla, place it on a preheated skillet. You don't need to add any oil or butter. Cook the tortilla for about 30 seconds. You will notice brown spots all over your tortilla. Flip it over and cook an additional 30 seconds. Don't over cook it as you want the tortilla to be nice and soft. Keep your tortillas warm by covering them in a towel on a plate or in a tortilla warmer.

Banana Bread

2/3 cup butter, softened
2 1/2 cups flour
1 2/3 cup sugar
1 1/4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 1/4 cup mashed ripe bananas
2/3 cup buttermilk
2 eggs
2/3 cup chopped walnuts (optional - we leave them out)
chocolate chips
cinnamon and sugar

Place butter in medium bowl.
Stir in flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. (It would be a good idea to stir those dry ingredients together and then add them to the butter, but I sometimes skip that step.)
Add bananas and half of the buttermilk.
Mix till moistened. Beat 2 minutes at medium speed.
Add the rest of the buttermilk and the eggs.
Beat for 2 more minutes.
Fold in nuts (if you choose to use them) and chocolate chips.
Bake in two 9 x 6 x 3 loaf pans for about 35 minutes.
Sprinkle top with cinnamon and sugar.

Cool 10 minutes and remove from pans.

Notes: If I don't have buttermilk on hand, I often use sour cream or a mixture of sour cream and milk (about a 1/3 cup of each). Or, you can put a little less than one TBSP or so of lemon juice in a measuring cup and add milk to make 2/3 cup. The texture of the bread will be thickest and richest with the sour cream; the milk alone will be the least rich.

From my Mom and Grandma

Whole Wheat Bread

Whole Wheat Bread Recipe from Carla
2 TBSP dry yeast
1/2 cup warm water
5 cups hot water
1.5 TBSP salt
2/3 cup vegetable oil
2/3 cup brown sugar
12 cup whole wheat flour (or 9 cups whole wheat, 3 cups Better for Bread white flour)

Proof yeast in warm water with one teaspoon sugar.
Set aside and let foam.
Combine hot water and 7 cups of flour in the mixer.
Mix on low until blended.
Add salt, oil and sugar.
Add 1 cup more flour: mix.

Add foamy yeast mixture, blend thoroughly.
Add 3-4 more cups flour to mixture.
Kneed for 10 minutes or so... dough should begin to clean the sides of the mixing bowl and be the consistency of cookie dough.
Oil hands, and remove dough from mixer 1/3 at a time. Form into loaves and place into a greased loaf pan.
Let rise for about 40 minutes in a warm oven; cover with a towel or saran wrap.
Bake at 350 for 40-45 minutes.
Remove from the pans and set on a rack to cool.

Notes from Carla
I generally let the dough rise up to the top of the pan. If you cut this hot (how can you resist?), set it sideways and cut with a serrated edged knife.

Notes from Jenny
My bread is usually done baking after 30 minutes at 350, so you might want to check it earlier than the 40-45 minutes. I divide my dough to make 4 loaves.

Pita Bread

photo of pita and Mandarin and Romain Salad

Prep. time: about 2 hours (most of which is raising time)

Yield: 6 larger (or 12 smaller) pocket breads

1 Cup wrist-temp. water
1 1/2 teaspoons ( half of a 1/4-oz. packet) active dry yeast
1 Tablespoon sugar or honey
1 teaspoon salt
about 3 1/2 cups of flour (1 cup of it can be whole wheat)
OPTIONAL: 1 Tablespoon sesame seeds
a little oil for the dough extra flour for rolling out
oil or cornmeal, for the baking tray

1) Place the water in a medium-sized bowl and sprinkle in the yeast. Let stand for 5 minutes-it will become foamy

2) Add sugar or honey and salt. Stir until everything dissolves.

3) Add three cups of flour, one cup at a time, mixing enthusiastically with a whisk. As the dough thickens, switch to a wooden spoon and, eventually, your hand. Knead the dough in the bowl for a few minutes, adding up to 1/2 cup more flour, as needed, to combat stickiness. When the dough is smooth, oil both the bowl and the top surface of the dough. Cover with a clean tea towel, and let rise in a warm place for about an hour, or until the dough has doubled in bulk.

4) Punch down the dough and transfer it to a clean, floured surface. Knead it for about five minutes, then divide it into either 6 or 12 equal pieces (depending on what size pita you want). Knead each little unit for a few minutes, then use a rolling pin to flatten it into a very thin circle. (Make sure there is plenty of flour underneath!) The diameter of each circle is unimportant, as long as it is no thicker than 1/8 inch. Let the circles rest for 30 minutes.

5) Preheat the oven to 500 degrees. Place a baking tray in the oven for a minute or two, to heat it. Then brush it with oil - or dust it with corn meal. Place as many circles on the tray as will fit without touching, and bake for just 6-8 minutes, or until puffed up and very lightly browned.

6) Remove from the oven, and wrap the breads in a clean, slightly damp tea rowel, then place in a brown paper bag, close up, for 15 minutes. This will keep the breads supple. (if you'd prefer the pita bread crisp and cracker like, bake 10-12 minutes and simply cool on a rack.)

On page 113 of the new revised edition,1992 Moosewood Cookbook by Mollie Katzen
I copied it from here because I was to lazy to to type it out myself.

My changes: 1/8 inch was too thin for my taste. They were more like crispy tortillas. Next time, I will roll them to 1/4 inch or a little more and bake them at 400 degrees instead of 500.