Failure: Tuscan Bread
Pretty… pretty shitty.
I already twittered about my tuscan bread failure so this is a little late. Over the weekend I made my first loaf of bread. I followed the recipe in Bread Bakers Apprentice
To be continued…
Bacon and Blackberry Muffins
I ran across these candied bacon recipes recently. So I wanted to do something with candied bacon but I don’t have an ice cream maker and the ice cream in a bag method is kind of a pain in the butt. I also had some blackberries left over from making jam so I figured muffins might be a good middle ground.
Candied Bacon
Ingredients
BaconBrown Sugar
Preparation
Preheat oven to 400F
Lay the bacon on a sheet pan on top of some aluminum foil.
Dust each strip of bacon with brown sugar (2 tbsp per strip)
Cook until they’re done (maybe 20 mins) and flip half way through.
Keep an eye on the bacon / sugar, they burn really easily.
Chop into bits if you are going to use this in muffins etc.
For the muffins I just used this blackberry muffin recipe. The main difference is the addition of the bacon and how I prepared them. I like to use a food processor whenever I can and this recipe seemed to lend it self to that. So if you don’t have a food processor or you don’t want to use one just refer to the other recipe.
Bacon and Blackberry Muffins
Ingredients
1/2 cup butter
2 eggs
1 1/8 cup sugar
3 cups flour, divided
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoons salt
1 pinch baking soda
1 cup milk
1 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups blackberries
1 cup candied bacon bits (add more if you want bacon in every bite)
Preparation
Preheat oven to 400F.
Grease 2 12 cup muffin pans or use liners.
In a food processor cream together the sugar, butter and eggs.
Add the milk and the vanilla extract and pulse until mixed.
In a separate bowl mix together the flour, salt and baking powder.
Add the flour mixture to the processor and run until combined.
Pour into a large bowl and gently fold in the bacon and the blackberries.
Add the batter to the muffin tins. I like to fill them to the top instead of 3/4 full.
Bake for 15 – 20 minutes (until done).
Paper Thin Crepes
Crepe Recipe
Ingedients
1 cup flour
1 & 1/2 cups of milk
2 large eggs
butter for pan
Preparation
Put the first three ingredients into a blender.
Blend for 7-10 seconds.
Heat a non-stick pan over medium heat.
Lightly brush the pan with butter.
Pour enough crepe mix into the pan to coat it.
Wait a few seconds then pour the remaining liquid back into the remaining crepe mix.
Use a rubber spatula to remove the clean up the area where the mix was poured out of the pan.
Depending on the heat of the pan, cook time will vary. So I just wait unlit the edge of the crepe starts to peel away from the pan. Then I give it another few seconds on the other side.
If that description is confusing here is a little video
Paper Thin Crepes from James Starmer on Vimeo.
Peach Jam and Blackberry Jam
My wife Rachel and I went over to my mothers house the other day and made some jam. My mother went out to the pick your own whatever farm Larriland and got some blackberries and some peach seconds.
The jam making process is pretty straight forward and there are usually instructions that come in the pectin package. For those who don’t know, pectin is a powder that is derived from plant cell walls and it is added to jam to help it gel. Some kind of jams can be made without extra pectin based on how pectiny (not a real word) the fruit is. For example, apples have a lot of pectin, blackberries don’t.
Here are the recipes,
Peach Jam
Ingredients
4 cups pitted chopped peaches
5 cups sugar
1 1.75oz package of pectin
Blackberry Jam
Ingredients
4 cups crushed blackberries
6 cups of sugar
1 1.75oz package of pectin
Preparation
Sterilize the jars and lids by boiling in hot water or washing in the dish washer hot cycle.
Bring the peaches or berries to a boil.
Slowy mix in the pectin.
Mix in the sugar.
Bring to a rolling boil.
Boil for one minute.
Fill the jars with some room for the liquid to expand, about 1/4 of an inch from the lid.
Add the jars to boiling water for 10-20 minutes.
Remove them from the water and let them cool at room temperature for 24 hours.
Here is more info on making jam.
Milchreis aka Milk Rice
My mother used to make this great German dish called milk rice. It’s a really simple rice pudding and it a really tasty breakfast when cold cereal isn’t going to hit the spot. I didn’t remember how she made it and it was too early in the morning to call her and ask so I did a quick search for a recipe and realized that all of the milchreis recipes took too long and didn’t use precooked rice. I had some left over rice from a stir fry we made a few days ago so I made up my own recipe. Here it is (all measurements are approximate because I was just eyeballing).
Milchreis
Ingredients
1 cup left over white rice
3/4 cup milk
3 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp butter
1 tsp cinnamon
Preparation
1. In a large microwavable bowl mix all of the ingredients.
2. Microwave until it starts to boil over.
3. Mix again.
4. Microwave again until it starts to boil over.
5. Let it sit for a few minutes to thicken up.