Genovese Basil Bread

One thing that I have in abundance this time of year is basil. It's something I absolutely must plant, along with tomatoes, onions, swiss chard and my other herbs. For years, I've had this recipe for Genovese Basil Bread that I found on the King Arthur Flour website, but I just never got around to making it.

When I finally made it, it was declared absolutely yummy, so it's an instant favorite in our house.

This recipe is made in a similar fashion to french bread, so you'll roll out the dough with a rolling pin and then roll each piece up jelly-roll style.

The recipe makes four individual-sized loaves, so if you've got a hungry clan, you'll want to make several batches!

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Genovese Basil Bread

2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
2 Cups Fresh Basil Leaves, coarsely chopped and lightly packed
1 clove garlic, minced
1 package dry yeast
1 cup very warm water (105-115 degres F)
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus a bit more for dusting
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

Heat oil in a heavy, large skillet (I love my cast iron skillets!) over low to medium heat. Add basil and garlic and stir for 1 minute. Remove from heat.

Dissolve the yeast in water in a small bowl. Let it stand for ten minutes.

Mound 2 1/2 cups of the flour onto your work surface or in a large bowl; make a well in the center. Add the dissolved yeast, basil mixture, salt and pepper to the well. Mix the ingredients that are in the well, and then incorporate the flour. Knead on a lightly floured surface until it's elastic, adding a bit more flour if it's sticky, for several minutes.

NOTE: You do NOT need to incorporate all 3.5 cups. Just add flour until it's only slightly sticky. This is a sticky dough, so don't try to add flour until it's smooth and firm or your bread will turn out rock-hard.

Place the dough in a large, oiled bowl, turning once to coat with oil, and then cover it to let it rise until it's doubled, about 45 minutes, depending on the warmth in the rising space.

Grease a baking sheet. Punch down the dough. Knead it on a lightly floured surface until it's smooth, about three minutes. Cut the dough into four pieces and then roll one out on a lightly-floured surface to an 8 x 5 1/2" rectangle. Roll it up jelly-roll style, starting at one long end. Transfer to the greased baking sheet, seam side down, then do the rest of the pieces the same way. Cover and let rise for about 30 minutes, until the pieces are doubled.

While they're rising, preheat your oven to 450 degrees farenheit. When the rolls have risen, slash the tops diagonally along the top about three times. Bake for about 30 minutes, or until they're golden in color and sound hollow when you tap on the bottom of a roll.

Serve warm with REAL butter!

Now, that'll stick to your ribs!

There's only one breakfast that I like almost as much as yogurt and homemade granola, and that's a warm earthenware bowl full of Irish oatmeal with a pool of real maple syrup and a hefty dallop of real butter melting deliciously over the mound. I haven't treated myself to Irish oatmeal lately, so when I saw some at the store this evening, it called to me from the shelf. Not only does the foodie in me love the stuff, but the aesthete in me also gets a kick from the old-fashioned style tin.

So, what is Irish oatmeal, anyway?

Irish Oatmeal, also known as Steel Cut Oats, are whole-grain groats that have been cut into pieces with steel blades. They're substantial, chewy, and full of good stuff for your body, like fiber, protein and B-vitamins (just the stuff you need to keep your body happy and your emotions calm). Plus, the grains are all grown by local Irish farmers and are not genetically modified.

After bringing my Irish Oatmeal home from the store, I showed it off to my husband and then I slipped away to write this post. Before long, I could smell it. That familiar scent of steel-cut oats simmering on the stove. Lucky for me, my husband's generous; I was able to score a couple of bites of his oatmeal, topped with butter and brown sugar. He offered me more, but I'll wait. My bowl will be filled in the morning.

For more information on Irish Oatmeal, visit the McCann's website.

The New Best Recipe Book and The Ultimate Cheesecake Cookbook

I didn't discover Cook's Illustrated until about a year ago and when I did, I fell head over heels in love. All of those basics I'd never cared to learn as a teen in my mom's kitchen popped out of those beautifully illustrated, ad-free pages. It was as if they knew the very decisions I was trying to make--they knew that I was shopping for the perfect set of knives, and that I had just butchered sixteen chickens and needed to know the best ways to grill them, and that the knew that I had a scad of hot peppers in my garden that were crying out for new recipes. Every page taught me something new, either basic or more advanced, that I'd never tried before.

Now, even in my earnest search to find each issue, I have a difficult time laying my hands on one and really should just subscribe to the thing.

A few months ago, I borrowed several of the Cook's Illustrated cookbooks from the library. I enjoyed Cover and Bake, Baking Illustrated and devoured The Complete Book of Pasta and Noodles. I didn't want to return them.

And now, I have one of my very own. Over the weekend, I visited a sweet little bookstore in Mt. Vernon, Ohio called Paragraphs. The wonderful ladies there read book after book to my children while I perused the shelves for goodies of my own. I came away with The New Best Recipe Book which has the heft of a college textbook but at a much more reasonable price. They don't call Cook's Illustrated America's Test Kitchen for nothing. It's fascinating to me to read recipes where someone else has done all of the guesswork for you.

I also bagged The Ultimate Cheesecake Cookbook by Joey Reynolds and Myra Chanin. I hope to turn my cheesecake-baking fifteen-year-old son loose on this one. Read one reviewer here, who says:

With the "Bonus" Magic Formula Which Will Allow You to Experiment and Concoct
Your Own Personally Flavored Baked Cheesecake, you can add any of the flavors
they haven't already, and you'll never have to make the same flavor twice.

This, my food-loving friends, is right up my son's alley.

I look forward to delving into these books which will, I'm sure, inspire me to collect a few more of Cook's Illustrated's editions. I have my eye on Steaks, Chops, Roasts and Ribs next.

Easter Dinner

No recipes to post today. Just a photo of our Easter dinner--English roast with red onions and baby carrots, mashed Yukon Gold potatoes and steamed asparagus with lemon butter. Delicious!

I hope your Easter was a very blessed one!

An Easter Lunch: Gruyere Fondue Salad

I was a bit dubious about this salad as I was preparing it. It wasn't that I haven't experienced and enjoyed warm-dressing salads before; it was just that the combination of ingredients sounded a bit contrary. Cold endive and warm roasted yukon gold potatoes? Vinaigrette with a gruyere fondue-type sauce? Yet it sounded irresistably appealing.

So the family gathered in the kitchen to make a unique Easter Sunday salad lunch to tide us over until evening when the roast beef, mashed potatoes, asparagus, corn and fresh bread would be ready. One person sliced potatoes, one browned the bacon, one rinsed and spun the greens, one mixed the vinaigrette and the white wine sauce and, before long, we were eating a fabulous lunch that everyone thoroughly enjoyed.

The white wine sauce would be wonderful alone with a fresh pasta.

Roasting the potatoes takes time, as well as making the different sauces, but I think you'll really enjoy my variation of a recipe that I found published in a 2004 issue of Country Home magazine, created by Red Cat chef Jimmy Bradley.

Be sure the potatoes aren't too thick and that they lay in a single layer, or they won't cook evenly.

Enjoy!

**sLoW**SlOw**sLoW**SlOw**sLoW**

Gruyere Fondue Salad

8 oz gruyere cheese, finely grated and set aside at room temperature for 30 minutes
2/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/3 cup sherry vinegar
1 tsp sugar
1 lb yukon gold potatoes, sliced 1/2 inch thick
2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
6 oz fresh shitake mushrooms, rinsed and de-stemmed
1 cup dry white wine
2 shallots, chopped, or two cloves or garlic, minced
1 tablespoon butter, softened
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
2 cups arugula
2 cups belgian endive, chopped, or romaine lettuce, chopped
2 cups arugula, torn

Mix vinaigrette: In a screw-top jar, combine vinegar, 2/3 cup olive oil and sugar. Shake to mix. Add salt and pepper to taste. Set aside.

Cook bacon until crisp. Drain on paper towels. Set aside.

Place potatoes in a bowl and drizzle one tablespoon of olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Place on a greased baking sheet in a single layer on one end of the baking pan. Roast, uncovered, in a 400 degree oven for ten minutes.

Toss mushrooms with remaining one tablespoon of olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Add mushrooms to other end of the baking pan after potatoes have roasted for ten minutes, then bake ten minutes longer or until potatoes are tender.

Meanwhile, in a medium saucepan, combine wine and shallots or garlic. Bring to a boil. Boil for about 4 minutes or until wine is reduced to 3/4 cup. Stir together the softened butter and the flour, then add it to the wine mixture, stirring well. Add whipping cream. Cook over medium heat until bubbly. Reduce heat to medium-low; gradually add the grated cheese, little by little, stirring after each addition until all the cheese has been added and melted.

Combine the potatoes, mushrooms, greens and vinaigrette.

Divide the warm cheese among six bowls and top each with the potatoes and greens mixture. Top with crumbled bacon. Serve while still warm.

My Favorite Lentil Soup

Fifteen years ago, I was a young mother with a toddler and an infant, trying to figure out how to run a household, make decent meals and stay healthy. It was at a mall in Ohio that I first found Jane Brody's Good Food Book.

The Good Food Book was like an amazing textbook to me, packed full of information about whole grains, complete proteins, from-scratch dishes and delicious, healthy recipes. That book became one of the foundational components of my cooking.

At the forensics tournament today, "My Favorite Lentil Soup" was served. The children who were once toddler and infant are now 17 and 15, and they were debating their peers about issues that I'd never thought would even be a part of their world fifteen years ago. The ladies in the hospitality room really enjoyed the lentil soup, and I pointed them here.

So, Hospitality Ladies, this soup's for you.

*sLoOow*~**sLoOow*~**sLoOow*~**sLoOow*~*

My Favorite Lentil Soup

2 T olive oil
2 large / 3 medium onions, chopped
3 carrots, grated
3/4 t marjoram
3/4 t thyme
1 28-oz can tomatoes with juice
7 C broth
1.5 C dried lentils--rinsed and picked
1/2 t salt
1/4-1/2 t pepper
6 oz dry white wine
1/3 C fresh parsley or 2 T dried parsley flakes

Heat the oil in a soup pot with a heavy bottom. Sauté the onions, carrots, marjoram, and thyme for about 5 minutes.

Coarsely chop the tomatoes, then add them to the veggies. Add the broth and lentils. Bring to boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer for about a half hour to 45 minutes or until lentils are tender.

Add the wine after the lentils are tender, then season to taste. You can add cheddar cheese to the top when you're done for a delicious complete protein!

Morning Glory Muffins

Years ago when we lived in a bigger city, my dad used to stop by a grocery store that carried delicious bakery items and lots of specialty foods. Every once in a while, he'd bring home a couple of HUGE muffins that were chock-full of delicious things--dates, pecans, carrots, apple, coconut--and I would absolutely dive into their moist goodness.

Now we live out in the country, quite far from any gourmet, whole food or specialty grocery stores. Our local grocer just recently began carrying imported cheeses. Up until then, there were only a couple of cheesehouses nearby that carried gruyere or gorgonzola, even though we live in the heart of cheese country. The days of my dad's gifts of gigantic muffins are gone.

The good news is that it forced me to find a recipe and make my own gargantuan muffins at home.

This recipe is very much like the one my dad used to bless me with, though it wouldn't hurt to add a half-cup of raisins, a mixture of dark and golden. Take the time to chop up these ingredients and enjoy a very substantial muffin you'll be proud of.

OoO...s-l-o*o*O.O.o*o*-w...OoO...s-l-o*o*O.O.o*o*-w...OoO

Morning Glory Muffins

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 cups white sugar
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups grated carrots
1 1/2 cups peeled and grated apple
3/4 cup flaked coconut
1/2 cup dates, pitted and chopped
1/2 cup chopped pecans
3 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Lightly oil 18 muffin cups, or coat with nonstick cooking spray.

In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon and salt.

In a second bowl, combine carrots, apples, coconut, dates and pecans. Stir in eggs, oil and vanilla. Add this mixture to the dry ingredients; stir until smooth.
Spoon or scoop the batter into the prepared muffin pans. Bake at 375 degrees F (190 degrees C) for 18 to 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean.

OoO...s-l-o*o*O.O.o*o*-w...OoO...s-l-o*o*O.O.o*o*-w...OoO

You can find more Morning Glory Muffins at allrecipes.com.