bread! and pictures!

behold some delicious food pr0n!

Hopefully next time I'll remember to take a picture before the food is nearly gone. This is the remaining third of some super awesome delicious fruit and nut bread I made yesterday.  I started with a basic Challah recipe, and got creative from there. You can roll just about anything you like into this stuff, just make sure it's chopped up small (my walnut peices were way too big) and that you don't have more than 1/3 cup or so of filling. You might not be able to tell from the picture, but I had way too much filling, and I didn't flatten my dough out enough before rolling. But it was still darn tasty!!  As will yours be, even if you nut chunks are too big, your filling too much, and your dough not rolled out enough.

Super Easy Fruit and Nut Stuffed Bread

makes one good sized loaf of bread
1 packet yeast
1/2 cup very warm water (warmer than body temp, but not "hot")
1 tsp honey + about 2 tbsp honey
1 egg
2 tbsp oil
1/2 tsp salt
2-3 cups flour (have 3 cups ready, you might not use it all)
1/4 cup dried cranberries (or dried fruit of your choice, chopped if big peices)
1/4 cup walnuts, chopped (or other nuts of your choice)

dissolve the yeast in the very warm water with 1 tsp of honey. leave for 5-10 minutes so the yeast can start to froth.

In a large bowl, beat the egg, then add 2 tbsp honey, the oil, salt and mix well. now add the frothy yeast mixture, and mix again. Slowly add flour until you have a soft dough. With well floured hands, knead the dough for about 12 minutes or until it is soft and elastic. pour a little bit of oil in the bowl, turn the dough ball to coat, cover loosely, and let rise in a warm place for about 2 hours.

When you are ready to shape the dough, soak the dried cranberries in hot water for about 5 minutes. This plumps them up, helps to break up the sticky blobs of dried fruit, and rehydrates them a little. All good things! Drain the fruit well, it's OK if it's damp, but you don't want it to be wet when you put it in the bread.

Punch down the dough, and roll or stretch it out into a rectangle-ish shape that's about 10" by 20". Mine was not a perfect rectangle, nor was it exactly those measurements. Spread the nuts and dried fruit on top of the dough, leaving 2" or so on the edges. Starting at one of the long ends, roll it up as tight as you can. If your dough is especailly thin, try to be careful not to tear it. But if it tears, that's Ok! Really! it will still taste wonderful! However, if the outside is torn, and there is fruit or nuts right on the outside, you will want to pick them off because they will burn in the oven. Pinch the ends closed and fold them underneath.

Let rise on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet for another hour. Bake in a preheated 425 degree oven for about 30 minutes, or until browned on the outside.

Let cool, and enjoy!!

Cherry Clafoutis

Every time I see cherries in the store, I want to make this easy, delicious, French dessert. Unlike American "pudding" style desserts, this is softer, creamier, and barely sets. I suppose you could use frozen cherries, just make sure they are 100% thawed to room temp.

1 1/2 lbs sweet cherries, (frozen is okay)
2 cups milk
3 tbsp sugar
3 tbsp flour
1/4 tsp almond extract
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
3 eggs
1 tbsp butter, cut into pieces

a little bit of sugar for sprinkling on top

Preheat oven to 425.

pit the cherries with a pitter, or by squeezing the pits out. I suggest doing this over the sink, or outside. Also, don't wear white when pitting cherries! keep any juices that accumulate while pitting. pour pitted cherries into a large greased baking dish or large greased pie plate.

put the milk on the stove over medium heat until it is just about to boil.

While milk is warming, blend the eggs, sugar, flour, and extracts in a large bowl. When the milk is hot, pour it over the egg mixture, and blend well. (if the eggs start to cook a little, that's OK.) Pour the eggy milky mixture over the cherries in the baking dish, and dot the top with the peices of butter. bake at 425 for 30 minutes, or until just set.

the Clafoutis will continue to set after it's been removed from the oven. sprinkle the top with a little bit of sugar, and let cool to warm. Then cut into peices or spoon out. serves 6.

peachy deliciousness!

it's that time of year when the last of the early summer crops are coming in, and the bulk of the summer crops are coming in, and the beginnings of the late summer crops are coming in. What does all that mean? unusually good prices at the farmers market, and the prices will only get better as more crops come in. this is good, as my tomato and pepper plants doesn't get anywhere enough sun.

and i just can't say no to peaches. they're just so deliciously peachy. but what to do with a dozen peaches???

i'd never made a peach cobbler until last weekend, but i do remember thinking "how hard could this possibly be?? you dumb all your fruit in a pan, put some dumplings over it, and poof, cobbler!" and yes, it really is that easy.

the dumpling dough recipe is the one right out of joy of cooking:
1 1/3 cups flour
2 tbsp sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
5 tbsp cold butter, cut into peices
1/2 cup milk

mix first 4 ingredients in a bowl. then cut in butter with a pastry blender. when it looks like coarse breadcrumbs, slowly stir in the milk until the dough comes together in a biscuit dough like consistency.

now for the fun part! i used peaches and pecans because it's what i had, but use what you have on hand. preheat oven to 350.

pit and slice 6 or 7 peaches. roughly chop about 1/2 cup pecans. put half the peaches in a greased square baking dish, then half the pecans. sprinkle some cinnamon and brown sugar on top. put the rest of the peaches, and the rest of the pecans on top, again with a little bit of cinnamon and brown sugar. now spoon the buiscit dough on top. it doesn't need to look pretty. leave about 1/4 inch at the edges, so it doesn't bake over the edge of baking dish. bake at 350 for 45 minutes, then let cool for about 10 minutes.

nothing much new in book news, i'm too busy peachgasming.

They'd be so much happier if they had fruit tarts.

the summer of the re-reads continues. sitting on my bedside table is the first two books of George R R Martin's Song of Ice & Fire series. I'm half way through the first one. maybe by the time i finish all four (again!), the fifth will be out? yeah right!

Reading A Game of Thrones for the second time, i'm picking up on all the dropped hints, the quick mentions, Old's Nan's stories. . . everything i missed the first time, because i didn't realize in an 800 page book, George R R Martin doesn't waste a single word.

- a single sentence describing some physical characteristics of Jon Snow's mother
- Ned Stark's comment about "Arya growing up to marry a King and be a Queen" (he says something like that
- a quick introduction to Gendry
- the thin line between "ward" and "hostage"
- all the subtly brilliant foreshadowing.

So sure, I know what's going to happen at the end of this novel, I know what's going to happen at the end of all four novels in the series. But the characters have no idea what's coming. The Stark children, so innocent, their parents have done a wonderful job of keeping them away from the corruptions of the King's court, the concerns of knights and lords. The Stark children haven't a clue what the real world is. they have no idea the pain and suffering in store for them. they might see it as pain and suffering, but isn't that just a form of growing up?

on a happier note, my house is exploding with fruit. Everything in the produce dept at the grocery store looked so good, i couldn't help myself from buying as much as possible. The next morning, i made the mistake of going to the farmers market, where nearly everything looked even better. peaches, cherries, snow peas. . . what am i going to do with all this food? Ok, other than the snow peas, can you say "Fruit Tart"!

you'll need:
3 cups sliced fruit (take skins off, remove pits or seeds)
3 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp cornstarch
Pie/Pastry Dough (that recipe is enough for two pie crusts - so, cut it in half, or make two fruit tarts.)

preheat oven to 400.
prepare the dough, and roll out to just larger than a dinner plate, and transfer to a greased cookie sheet. don't roll it out too thin!! mix fruit, suage, and cornstarch in a bowl, and using a slotted spoon, put the fruit mixture in the center of your dough, spreading it to about 2" from the edge. if it's mounded in the center, that's OK. fold the edges of your tart up, covering a little of the fruit. if the dough doesn't want to stay where you put it, "glue" it in place with some cold water and pressure. bake for 20-25 minutes until edges are browned and fruit is bubbly. cool completely before serving, to set the juices. if desired, warm slightly before serving, and sprinke with confectioners sugar.

if you are feeling really ambitious, you can make little shapes and designs with your fruit. but ambitious kicked me in the butt the other day, so i think i'm just going to dump it all in. then i'll test it on my co-workers.

shadowmarching the wrong way?

been travelling more. was down in Atlanta for 2 days, then back down for southern southern GA in two weeks. nothing much exciting in Atlanta. that airport is really bizarre! a super nice lady at the MARTA station helped me get a ticket to get to the airport. everyone down there talks funny and calls me "hon".

finished Tad William's Shadowmarch. it was okay. felt stilted, predictable, patterned. most paragraphs consisted of 2 run on sentences, followed by a confusing and drawn out simile, followed by a line of dialogue. Williams made a habit of listing out what the characters were doing - "He got out of bed and walked across the room. He put on his chainmail whatever and called the guard, who was standing outside. he left the room and walked down the stairs." Okay, so it isn't quite that bad, but parts of the book are close.

I need to see which was written first, Shadowmarch or A Game of Thrones. In Shadowmarch, the family is in a northern province, on the borderlands of where the "fairyfolk" live. And were not talking cutesy fairies with wings here, we're talking the creepy ones who steal your kids and burn your farm. A human enemy is rising in the south, threatening the northern provinces, there is talk of an alliance through marriage. I was waiting for someone to say that famous Game of Thrones line: "They're marching the wrong way". Twin regents Briony and Barrick (and what's with there being twins in every single epic fantasy series? ok, dichotomy and balance, i get it already! who was the first person to decide every epic fantasy series needed a set of twins?) are trying to keep their northern keep of Southmarch safe and under control. these kids have been running amock through the keep for 15 years, yet none of the nobles seem to know if they can be trusted? and the kids don't seem to have a clue who to trust? they weren't stuck in a convent for the last 15 years, so maybe they are just dumb. or unaware that their dad is the king. and being held hostage down south.

maybe i'm being harsh. Maybe i'm getting jaded. maybe i've just been really spoiled reading some really good shit lately. Because if you're looking for something fantasy-ish (we do have plenty of active magic, and a pretty cool bizarre religion and culture in the way down south) with action and battles and swords and some wizardly, and crypts and secret passages, and intrigue, and the like, you'll have a good time with Shadowmarch. you just might not be all that impressed with it.

Many, many hours stuck on airplanes and in airports let me catch up with one of my perennial favorites, The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver. this is one of the few books i can say lived up to all it's hype. gents beware, this is totally a girly book. told from the points of view of four daughters who travel with their parents on a mission to the Congo in the 1960s. One girl is a princess, one is a tomboy, one a learning disabled mute, the last one but a babe. This book is beautiful, and a tearjerker. I've read it before, so i know what's going to happen: who gets to come home to America, who stays in Africa, who dies. and i start tearing up about 10 pages ahead of time. ladies, if you've never read this book, get it. you will like it. you will see yourself and everyone you know in it.

let's see. . . glazed apples. like caramel apples? or like candied apples on the stove? i got a recipe for Tart Tatin, which is like an upside down apple pie made with candied apples:

Tart Tatin:

first, you gotta make the pastry part:
2 cups flour
1 tbsp sugar
1/2 cup butter, cut into small peices
2 or 3 tbsp milk (and not that skim stuff!)

blend sugar & flour. cut the butter in with a pastry knife, and blend till mixture look like coarse crumbs (this is like making regular pie dough!). add the milk one tbsp at a time, and blend it in till the dough holds together. depending on how humid the room is, you might not need all the milk. wrap dough tight in plastic wrap, and put it in the fridge.

now you gotta make the "inside" part:
1/2 cup butter, at room temp
1/2 cup sugar
3 lbs apples, peeled and wedged
2 tbsp lemon juice

with the stove turned off, spread butter on the bottom of a heavy skillet (the kind of skillet than is oven safe). pour sugar over the butter, then layer apples on top of that. sprinkle with lemon juice, and put it on the stove, over medium to high heat. you want the sugar and butter to melt together and carmelize the apples. shake pan (but don't stir up too much!!) occasionally. after 20 minutes, take it off the heat, or your apples will burn. as this mixture is cooling, roll out your dough on a floured surface. and preheat your oven to 425. you need the dough to be a little bigger than the top of the pan, it's OK if it's pretty thick, but make there aren't any holes!! lay the pastry round on top of the pan, and tuck the edges in. prick lightly with a fork (this is so the steam can escape, but you don't want gigantic fork holes). bake 20 min at 425. the top of the pastry part should be golden. have a friend help you turn (flip!) the pastry out onto a platter. the inside is really hot! be careful!

and if you just want the carmelized apples, i suppose you could skip the pastry part, and have the carmelized apples with vanilla icecream and mint sprigs.