Hot Buttered Pretzels!

On a cold, winter day, what could be better than hot, buttery bread? Hot Buttered Pretzels, of course! Follow the recipe to a T and you'll have pretzels to die for! If you have unsalted butter, it really does make the difference. We used salted, and with the gourmet/coarse salt, it was too salty.

This recipe comes from the King Arthur Flour website. Better than Aunt Annies by a MILE!

INTRO
Pretzels are available crisp and hard from your grocery or, if you're lucky and in the right place, soft and chewy from street vendors. Our recipe is for the soft, chewy kind.
INGREDIENTS
Dough
2 1/2 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
2 1/4 teaspoons regular instant yeast
7/8 to 1 cup warm water*

Topping
1/2 cup warm water
2 tablespoons baking soda
coarse, kosher or pretzel salt
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
INSTRUCTIONS
*Use the greater amount in the winter, the lesser amount in the summer, and somewhere in between in the spring and fall. Your goal is a soft dough.

Food Processor Method: Place the flour, salt, sugar and yeast in the work bowl of a food processor equipped with the steel blade. Process for 5 seconds. Add the water, and process for 7 to 10 seconds, until the dough starts to clear the sides of the bowl. Process a further 45 seconds. Place a handful of flour in a bowl, scoop the slack dough into the bowl, and shape the dough into a ball, coating it with the flour. Transfer the dough to a plastic bag, close the bag loosely, leaving room for the dough to expand, and let it rest at room temperature for 30 minutes.

Bread Machine Method: Place all of the dough ingredients into the pan of your bread machine, program the machine for Dough or Manual, and press Start. Allow the dough to proceed through its two kneading cycles, then cancel the machine, flour the dough, and give it a rest in a plastic bag, as instructed above.

Manual/Mixer Method: Place all of the dough ingredients into a bowl, and beat till well-combined. Knead the dough, by hand or machine, for about 5 minutes, till it's soft, smooth, and quite slack. Flour the dough and place it in a bag, and allow it to rest for 30 minutes.

Preheat your oven to 500°F. Prepare two baking sheets by spraying them with vegetable oil spray, or lining them with parchment paper.

Transfer the dough to a lightly greased work surface, and divide it into eight equal pieces (about 70g, or 2 1/2 ounces, each). Allow the pieces to rest, uncovered, for 5 minutes. While the dough is resting, combine the 1/2 cup warm water and the baking soda, and place it in a shallow bowl. Make sure the baking soda is thoroughly dissolved; if it isn't, it'll make your pretzels splotchy.

Roll each piece of dough into a long, thin rope (about 28 to 30 inches long), and twist each rope into a pretzel, as illustrated. Dip each pretzel in the baking soda wash (this will give the pretzels a nice, golden-brown color), and place them on the baking sheets. Sprinkle them lightly with coarse, kosher, or pretzel salt. Allow them to rest, uncovered, for 10 minutes.

Bake the pretzels for 8 to 9 minutes, or until they're golden brown, reversing the baking sheets halfway through.

Remove the pretzels from the oven, and brush them thoroughly with the melted butter. Keep brushing the butter on until you've used it all up; it may seem like a lot, but that's what gives these pretzels their ethereal taste. Eat the pretzels warm, or reheat them in an oven or microwave. Yield: 8 pretzels.

Chicken Potpie

It's a Level Three out there, which means that the heavy snow and cold weather has forced me to stay inside my midwestern home, spend time with my family and make some delicious comfort foods.

Fortunately for me, yesterday was shopping day, so I was blessed to have a reasonably full pantry and well-stocked refrigerator, including several pounds of fresh chicken breasts. After thinking it over for a while, I decided that today was most definitely a chicken potpie day. A quick check of the recipe confirmed that I had all that I needed to make the meal, and I had, of course, plenty of time, so by dinnertime, the potpie was served, steaming hot and gratefully received.

Whether you find yourself blessed with a snow day or not, I think you'll enjoy this delicious all-in-one meal, featuring an herbed variation of Pate Brise, adapted from the Martha Stewart Living Cookbook.

*^...*^...oOooOo*^...*^...*^...oOooOo*^...*^...*^...oOooOo*^...

Chicken Potpie

Chicken and Broth:

Three chicken breasts or one 4 lb chicken
1 quart of homemade broth or low-sodium broth
1 large yellow onion, cut in half
2 dried bay leaves
1/2 teaspoon black peppercorns
1 small bunch of fresh time, or a teaspoon of dried
1 celery stalk, cut into thirds

Combine in a stock pot and add enough water just to cover the chicken. Cover and bring the stock to a boil, rudce heat and simmer, uncovered for an hour.

Pate Brise for Chicken Potpie

1 cup of flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon fresh or 1 teaspoon dried thyme leaves
10 tablespoons chilled butter, cut into small pieces
3 tablespoons ice water
1 large egg yolk

Combine the flour, salt and thyme in the bowl of a food processor, fitted with a steel blade. Pulse a few times to mix.

Add the butter and pulse until the mixture resembles coarse cornmeal, not longer than about fifteen seconds.

With the processor running, add the ice water and the egg yolk, processing until the dough holds together.

Turn the dough onto a flat surface, pat into a disc, wrap well and refrigerate for at least one hour.

Filling:

5 tablespoons butter
1 1/4 cups red or russett potatoes, scrubbed and cut into 1/2 inch pieces
12 pearl onions or two small cooking onions, peeled and cut into bite-sized pieces (if pearl onions are large)
1 medium leek, white and pale-green parts, sliced int 1/4 inch-thick rounds, well-washed (I omitted this in this batch because leeks are out-of-season and expensive right now)
2 medium carrots, peeled and sliced into thick rounds
6 ounces white button mushrooms, if you like them, cut into quarters, if large
1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon of flour
1 cup of milk
2 tablespoons fresh or two teaspoons dried thyme
2 tablespoons chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
zest of one lemon
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 large egg yolk
1 tablespoon heavy cream

Drain the chicken and reserve the stock. Remove the skin from the chicken, if using a whole chicken, and remove all chicken from the carcass. Shred the meat into bite-sized pieces (good job for little fingers) and set aside.

Strain the stock, keeping two cups of liquid aside. Save the rest for another use, like rice or potatoes or a noodle soup.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees farenheit. Melt five tablespoons of butter in a heavy skillet over medium-high heat. Add the potatoes and onions and cook,stirring occasionally, for about five minutes, until potatoes begin to turn golden.

Add leek, carrots, and mushrooms; cook five minutes more.

Add flour and cook, stirring, for one minute. Stir in the reserved chicken broth and the milk, bringing to a simmer. Cook until thick and bubbly, 2-3 minutes, stirring constantly. Add the chicken pieces, parsley, 2 teaspoons of salt, thyme, lemon zest, and pepper. Transfer to an ovenproof casserole. Set aside.

Roll out the dough until it's 1/4 inch thick and transfer to a baking sheet. Transfer to the refrigerator and allow the dough to chill for 15 minutes.

In a small bowl, whisk together the egg yolk and cream. Take the dough out of the refrigerator and, working quickly, place the dough over the chicken mixture, tucking the extras under arond the edges. Cut slits in the crust to allow steam to escape. Brush with the egg wash, place on a baking sheet and bake until the crust is golden, 35 to 40 minutes. Serve hot.

Beef Vegetable Soup

"Mom, when I go to class tomorrow, I'd like to take a pot of Beef Vegetable Soup."

That, I can gladly oblige.

There's nothing like a hot, savory soup to warm the bones on a winter day. When my daughter requested this recipe to share at her homeschool co-op, I could practically taste it.

This one is a slo-o-o-w recipe because it's cooked in a crock pot. Normally, I don't care a whole lot for crock-pot cooking because it tends to be bland, turns things mushy, and most recipes rely on highly-processed foods like Velveeta and canned soups. But this recipe doesn't. As a matter of fact, this recipe is very flexible. I make it differently almost every time I throw it together. But I'll share with you the general idea of Beef Vegetable Soup. Do with it what you like.

*..SoSSoo--.O.--ooSSoS..*..SoSSoo--.O.--ooSSoS..*

Beef Vegetable Soup


Brown two pounds of meat. This can be stew beef, ground beef, ground turkey, venison...whatever.

Into your crockpot, place:

A medium-sized bag of mixed veggies, or you can throw in a small bag of peas, 1/2 cup or more of sliced carrots, and a small bag of corn. Whatever veggies you like will work.

Add to this:

Four or five medium-sized potatoes, cubed
Two medium onions, chopped
A large jar of spagetti sauce (I used leftover pizza sauce)
A couple of teaspoons each of your favorite herbs, like thyme, oregano and basil.
A bay leaf or two, if you have them.
Salt and pepper to taste
A few dashes of hot pepper sauce, if you like

When the meat has been browned, add it to the mix.
Add water or broth to cover (beef broth is especially good).

Now, here comes the slo-o-o-w part. Cook it in the crock pot for about eight hours on low or six hours on high.

*..SoSSoo--.O.--ooSSoS..*..SoSSoo--.O.--ooSSoS..*

My family devours this with cheddar on top, with a handful of crackers or just like it is.

After all, soup is Good Food!

Heavy Pizza Sauce

This pizza sauce comes from Diane Morgan's book Pizza. She calls it a robust sauce that won't make the crust soggy. This recipe makes 3 1/2 cups of sauce--enough for several pizzas or a couple of pizzas, with extra to freeze.

2 12 ounce cans of tomato paste
3/4 cup water
1 1/2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons table salt or 2 1/2 tablespoons kosher salt
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 clove garlic, minced
4 chopped basil leaves or three additional teaspoons dried basil

In a large bowl, combine the paste, water and olive oil.

Add the rest of the ingredients and whisk well.

Can be stored in the fridge for five days or in the freezer for two months.

A Perfect Pizza Party and Pizza Sauce? Forget the Jar!

Yesterday afternoon, the Time to Cook kitchen was all aflutter. Crusts were mixing and rising. Food processors were chopping. Pots were bubbling on the stove. All of the Time to Cook family was at work in some way preparing for a pizza extravaganza; in just a few hours, we would be welcoming nineteen children and six adults to make pizzas from scratch. Fifteen-year-old Z was my right-hand-man, crumbling the feta, slicing the garlic, making his first-ever batches of pizza dough and mixing up this no-cook sauce in no-time.

The recipe Z threw together is not only delicious, but it's quick! Taking time to cook doesn't always mean cooking, and it doesn't always mean hours of labor. Sometimes it just means doing more than twisting off the top of a jar of store-bought pizza sauce.

This sauce meets the criterion. It doesn't need cooking, only takes a few minutes to assemble and--BONUS--it goes quite well with this crust.

If you don't make your own paste or have your own home-canned tomatoes, you can substitute by using store-bought.

This recipe comes from Diane Morgan's book Pizza. I very highly recommend it if you're a pizza lover, like I am.

88-^.o.^-::-^.o.^-88-^.o.^-::-^.o.^-88-^.o.^-::-^.o.^-88

New York-Style Pizza Sauce

1 can (14.5 ounces) diced tomatoes in juice OR whole tomatoes put through the food processor briefly
1 can (6 ounces) tomato paste
1 1/2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons chopped basil or 2 teaspoons dried basil
1 1/2 teaspoons dried oregano
1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
One clove of minced garlic
3/4 teaspoon table salt or 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt.

Mix all of this together, then adjust seasonings to taste. Use immediately or store in the refrigerator up to five days or in the freezer up to two months.

88-^.o.^-::-^.o.^-88-^.o.^-::-^.o.^-88-^.o.^-::-^.o.^-88

This was one of three sauces we made for the evening, including this slow-simmered sauce, and this other heavy, no-cook sauce, in addition to an alfredo for white pizza.

About an hour before the guest were to arrive, we turned on both ovens and I assembled a Deep Dish Onion and Spinach Pizza Pie so there would be something to munch on while the guests' crunchy creations were cooking. I pulled out the pizza screens I'd ordered from A Best Kitchen Supplies (great prices! quick shipping!) and we began laying out the toppings.

What a variety! We had:

Chopped spinach
Sun-dried tomatoes
Feta cheese
Sliced garlic
Mozzarella
Pepperoni
Banana peppers
Sliced roma tomatoes
Chunk roma tomatoes
Grated Parmigiano Reggiano
Sliced red onions
Sliced mushrooms
Olive oil
Basil
Oregano
Crushed Red Pepper

Kids and adults alike had fun taking turns around the big butcher-block island and arranging toppings, coming up with some wonderful creations. Some were tried and true. Some tested the boundaries. A square personal pizza? Why not? Nothing but tomatoes, garlic and olive oil along with a sprinkling of basil and oregano? What the heck? Never eaten Feta on a pizza before? Give it a shot!

The Onion and Spinach Deep Dish was a big hit, even among the young ones and those who claimed an aversion to garlic. I think my personal favorite pizza combination was the alfredo sauce with sliced garlic, feta cheese, chopped spinach, parmigiano reggiano, then drizzled with olive oil. And not just because I made it myself.

Clean-up was a snap, since the mamas of the families dove in to do and dry dishes.

And there were leftovers. I froze the extra dough and sauce. And the leftover pizza?

Breakfast, of course!

Another fascinating food blog:David Lebovitz

When you've mastered your yogurt making, surf on over to David Lebovitz's food blog and check out the recipe for Strawberry Frozen Yogurt. This recipe may even push me over the edge and force me to buy vodka or kirsch, something I've never done.


Photo from David's page.

Fettucine with Carmelized Onions and White Wine Sauce and A New Kitchen Tool

There are times when chaos rules all around me and I just don't care. Today was one of those days.

We'd just returned from morning service at church and I'd decided to experiment with a new pasta and a couple of sauces. The kitchen was still in a state of limited functionality after my previous day's venture into cleaning the spice drawer and reorganizing the pantry and cupboards. Everything hadn't been put back into place yet, but I didn't care. A clean washcloth to make a clear surface on my butcher block, my food processor and a couple of pots and pans were all I needed. Everything else could tumble down around me.

And it practically did.

Kids were tracking snow through the house. Other kids were scattering toys. Other kids were playing board games on the floor of the piano room. There was delightful chaos everywhere, and I was embracing it.

After sixteen-year-old Bard finished the Simple Hot Cocoa, I enlisted her help to make the two sauces I'd be tossing the fresh egg noodles in. She did all of it but chop the onions. The food processor did that.

She even used the best cheese grater in the world to turn a block of Pecorino into a bowl of light, fluffy flakes. If you regularly grate hard cheeses, the Microplane Classic Zester/Grater is the only way to go. It runs about $13.00 at the MegaKitchenType store and is totally worth it. Microplane originally began as a woodworking tool until the wife of a hardware salesman picked up a rasp to zest an orange for a cake after her other zesters just didn't cut it. She was pleasantly surprised by the results and made the Microplane Grater a regular kitchen tool. After trying rotary cheese graters and not being impressed, I'm thrilled to have added the Microplane to my list of favorite kitchen tools. I hope to soon add the Medium Ribbon Grater for soft cheeses, butters, chocolates and apples. It may even give my Cuisinart a run for its money!

Both of the sauces were good, but the one that follows was delicious and proved the favorite of my seven testers. I'm not sure it was quite enough sauce for one pound of fresh egg noodles, and I did have to add some cream during the last stage, but it was still quite tasty. It even stopped the chaos long enough for the masses to be fed.

It takes a good bit of time to make fresh egg pasta, so be sure to set aside an hour for a pound and another twenty minutes or more for the sauce, depending on how quickly your onions brown.

For a bit of variation, try browning a 1/2 pound of bacon, removing the bacon and leaving 1/4 cup of grease, omitting the olive oil and browning the onions in the bacon grease instead. Continue with the recipe from there.

For best results, serve the pasta in warmed bowls. It loses heat fairly quickly.

Enjoy!

xXx--=..oOo*oOo..=--xXx--=..oOo*oOo..=--xXx--=..oOo*oOo..=--xXx

After making your egg pasta into one pound of fettucine, bring four quarts of water to a boil.

Grate 1/2 cup of Pecorino Romano very fine, maybe a bit more if you like to sprinkle the cheese on top of your pasta. Maybe even more, because you must sample it after you've grated it. It's just too light and fluffy to resist. Don't use pre-grated. It doesn't melt as nicely. It's better to just invest in a good grater and buy fresh wedges of cheese. Often, the pregrated cheeses are of lower quality and have anti-caking agents and other preservatives added to them. If you can't find the Pecorino Romano, you can substitute a good-quality parmesan, like Parmigiano Reggiano but you still need to fresh-grate it.

While the water is boiling and the egg pasta is resting, chop four onions very fine.

Heat 1/4 cup of extra-virgin olive oil in a saucepan that will be big enough to accomodate the noodles and the sauce. Saute the onions in the oil (or use the bacon variation suggested above) until well browned but not black.

When the onions are just about done, add two cloves of minced garlic and saute until onions are finished and garlic is lightly sauted.

Turn the heat up to medium and add 1/2 cup of white wine. Bring this to a simmer and make sure all of the onion bits are scraped off the bottom of the pan. Simmer it for about three minutes.

Add 1/4 cup of heavy cream to the pan and heat just until warm. Taste it and add salt to taste.

When your water comes to a boil, add one tablespoon of salt, then add your egg noodles. Cook them just until al dente, then quickly drain them and add them to the sauce, along with the 1/2 cup grated cheese.

Serve it warm with some more cheese on the side. A nice dish of steamed broccoli would go really well with this.

It will be worth the chaos, I assure you. Dishes, after all, can wait until tomorrow.