FoodB

Don't know how it happened, but I finished all the work I had laid out for the day before lunch. That means that I am sitting here staring at my screen trying to look like I'm busy. Weird how it looks bad if you finish your work to quickly or to slowly.

So I might as well update this site. The following is a quick little side dish that Jennifer made a few months back that we enjoyed. I'm not very good at making side dishes because I end up getting distracted easily and forget to do a step or two on the main dish, so we usually go without. This one is pretty easy and different than the normal green beans/peas/broccoli/corn side dish that I grew up with as a kid.

Baked Fennel with Parmesan Cheese

2 lbs. Fennel Bulbs, washed & cut in half
4 Tbsn. of butter
1/2 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese

1. Cook the fennel in a large pan of boiling water until soft but not mushy. Drain.
2. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
3. Cut the fennel bulbs lengthwise into 4 to 6 pieces. Place them in a buttered baking dish and dot with butter. Sprinkle parmesan over the fennel.
4. Bake in hot oven until the cheese is golden brown, about 20 minutes.

Posted by Gordon at 02:14 PM | Permalink

On my quest for easy meals that require little time to prepare, I came across this little number. It takes about 10 minutes to prepare everything and 8 minutes to cook. Also I found that my favorite butcher, Plowboys, offers much better ground lamb than I find in the store. That made for a really good meal. We served this one up with some cut up cucumbers, tomatoes and red onions on top of round of pita bread.

Middle Eastern Lamb Patties with Yogurt Sauce

Lamb patties
2 slices high-quality White Sandwich Bread with crusts removed
3 Tbsp. Plain Yogurt
1 lbs. Ground Lamb
2 Tbsp. Minced Fresh Cilantro
1 Tbsp. Ground Cumin
Pinch of Cayenne
3 Tbsp. Vegetable Oil

Yogurt Sauce
1 cup Plain Yogurt
2 Tbsp. Fresh Lemon Juice
1/2 Garlic Clove, minced
Salt and Ground Black Pepper

1. Make Lamb Patties: Tear bread into small pieces and mash with yogurt to form west paste in medium bowl. Add lamb, cilantro, 1 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp pepper, cumin, & cayenne, and mix until uniform. Pinch off 3 Tbsn sized pieces of meat mixture, roll firmly into balls (12 balls), then flatten into small patties about 1 1/2 inches thick.
2. Brown Patties: Heat oil in 12 inch non-stick skillet over high heat until shimmering. Brown patties on just one side, about 2 minutes. Flip patties over, reduce heat to medium and continue to cook until well browned on second side, about 6 minutes. Transfer patties to paper towel-lined plate.
3. Make Yogurt Sauce: While patties cook, mix sauce ingredients together and season with salt & pepper to taste. Serve patties with sauce.

Really good stuff here. If you have never tried ground lamb before, this would be a good starter. Ground lamb as a very unique flavor and doesn't feel as heavy as ground beef does when it is cooked in patty form. Wish I could tell you that it is more nutritious but everything I read about it states that it is about the same as ground beef, so you'll just have to try it for the adventure of it all.

Note: It was mentioned in the comments that I should add more real pictures of the food we make. I have to agree with that. It may take a few weeks though because the only reliable camera we have right now is our camera phones so I need to get a connector before I can do that full time. Thanks for the suggestion Joe!

Posted by Gordon at 09:00 AM | Permalink

Guess who got lazy with his website? If you guessed me, I'm really hurt! Even though it's true you didn't have to think of me first.

All kidding aside, I mentioned in the last few posts how I was getting busier at work and going to school at nights. Well this schedule has really destroyed my desire to post to this here site. That being said, I'm going to try harder from now on.

So what has happened in the last month at the Flannery household, at least cooking wise: Not much. We have been revisiting a lot of the recipes that we posted previously on the site so it is kind of hard to do a new write up on them. I have personally been cooking more of the meals also. I'm not as good as Jenn is but I can make a meal edible. Also we really enjoy the new Food Network program Dinner Impossible. If you haven't watched it yet, give it a chance. The chef on the show is given a situation where he has to prepare a meal in set amount of time. Seems pretty boring but Jenn and I find it interesting how he pulls it off each week. Sometimes he is just cooking for 10 people and sometime he is cooking for 4000 (like he did in the last episode). Another bonus of the show is that they post almost all of the recipes that he uses online. That in itself is pretty impressive because he usually does about 14 recipes in each episode. We have tried a few of them and will post the results in a later posting.

On Sunday of this week I decided to finally make a dough based recipe in our mixer that we got for Christmas. For a long time as well I have wanted to do a yeast based bread of some kind. Yeast is something that has scared/fascinated me because you are basically cooking with a life form. So I thought it would be best if I went with a basic wheat bread mix and here is the recipe.

Whole Wheat American Loaf Bread

2 1/6 cups bread flour, plus extra for work surface
1 1/3 cups whole wheat flour
2 tsp. table salt
1 cup milk, warm (110 degrees)
1/3 cup water, warm (110 degrees)
2 Tbs. unsalted butter, melted
3 Tbs. honey
1 package rapid-rise yeast

1. Adjust oven rack to low position and heat oven to 200 degrees. Once oven temperature reaches 200 degrees, maintain heat 10 minutes, then turn off oven heat.
2. Mix flours and salt in bowl of standing mixer fitted with dough hook. Mix milk, water, butter, honey, and yeast in 1-quart Pyrex liquid measuring cup. Turn machine to low and slowly add liquid. When dough comes together, increase speed to medium (setting number 4 on a KitchenAid mixer) and mix until dough is smooth and satiny, stopping machine two or three times to scrape dough from hook if necessary, about 10 minutes. Turn dough onto lightly floured work surface; knead to form smooth, round ball, about 15 seconds.
3. Place dough in very lightly oiled bowl, rubbing dough around bowl to lightly coat. Cover bowl with plastic wrap; place in warm oven until dough doubles in size, 40 to 50 minutes.
4. Form dough into loaf by gently pressing the dough into a rectangle, one inch thick and no wider than the length of the loaf pan. Next, roll the dough firmly into a cylinder, pressing with your fingers to make sure the dough sticks to itself. Turn the dough seam side up and pinch it closed. Place dough in the pan and press it gently so it touches all four sides of the pan. Finally, place dough in greased 9-by-5-by-3-inch loaf pan.
5. Cover with plastic wrap; set aside in warm spot until dough almost doubles in size, 40 minutes. Heat oven to 350 degrees, placing empty loaf pan on bottom rack. Bring 2 cups water to boil.
6. Remove plastic wrap from loaf pan. Place pan in oven, immediately pouring heated water into empty loaf pan; close oven door. Bake until instant-read thermometer inserted at angle from short end just above pan rim into center of loaf reads 195 degrees, about 40 to 50 minutes. Remove bread from pan, transfer to a wire rack, and cool to room temperature. Slice and serve.

The bread is really good. I really like the taste of the bread and it didn't taste as bland as the stuff we find in the store. It is a lot denser compared to that store bought bread as well.

It was so fascinating seeing the dough rise and I really enjoyed each step of the process. I'm not really afraid of working with yeast anymore because it seemed pretty easy once I followed the directions. I'm hoping I can make a loaf each week just so we don't ever have to buy from the store again.

Posted by Gordon at 10:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)