Sally Lunn bread

I'd never heard of Sally Lunn bread before a few days ago. Deb posted a recipe for it at Smitten Kitchen, and I was intrigued...I was intrigued by the description of the bread as a low-effort, not-as-buttery brioche, and I was intrigued that it was a yeasted bread with methodology more closely resembling a quick bread.

So I made it! It was really easy: all-purpose flour, sugar, salt, and yeast, combined with warmed milk and butter, and finally eggs. Mix for a few minutes, rise until doubled (mine took almost two hours), dumped into a floured and buttered loaf pan, 30 minute rise, and bake.

Nothing special by itself, but we turned it into French toast for dinner tonight. Hubby declared it right up there with the best French toasts we've ever had.

Potato chip cookies?!

Yesterday, I saw some of my Twitter pals discussing this recipe from King Arthur Flour for potato chip cookies. I happened to be on my way to the grocery store and happened to have taken today off of work to play with the kiddos: potato chip cookies sounded just intriguing enough to try.

In my family, we don't believe that cookies without chocolate chips should exist, so I added a sprinkling of mini chocolate chips. I'm not sure we would've liked them without the chocolate, but with the chips, they had the perfect combination of salty and sweet. Hubby said, "It's like when you're eating a chocolate chip cookie and then it's too sweet so you need to grab a handful of chips only they're already in the cookie!"

I made these with an original kettle chip, and they weren't very salty. I think next time, I'd up the anty by using a saltier chip: kettle chips with sea salt, maybe, or hubby even suggested salt and vinegar chips.

Balloon bread and ghee

Our Mellow Bakers breads for March are two varieties of whole wheat levains, sunflower seed bread with rye sourdough, and aloo paratha.

I've already made both of the whole wheat breads. I made the whole wheat levain with multigrain soaker for World Bread Day last year. It was one of my very favorites from Hamelman, and I've made it several times since then. The plain whole wheat levain, which I made in the hopes that my kids (who don't like seeds in their bread) would like it, was just so-so.

I'll need a chunk of time to revive my starter in order to make the sunflower seed with rye sourdough, so I'll probably get to that one over spring break (one week away!).

So I decided to start with aloo paratha, a bread I had never heard of before it popped up on our list for March. Hamelman describes aloo paratha as "delectable filled flat breads [which] originated in India [that are] filled with potatoes, herbs, and spices [and] are a fine accompaniment to milder foods."

I actually don't have any experience making Indian food, so I was excited and a little nervous to make these into a meal. One of the ingredients on the list is ghee, Indian clarified butter, which I actually had heard of before. I first read about ghee when Nicole posted a recipe for kettle corn (one of my favorites). I was intrigued with her claims that it makes the absolute best kettle corn and immediately bookmarked this recipe. But I'd never tried it...until now!

To make the ghee, I first purchased a pound of the best organic butter I could find. I heated the butter over medium heat until it was melty and frothy and starting to boil, then I lowered the heat to low. I let it cook for 30-45 minutes, unbothered, as instructed. I spent the time obsessively researching, and it was clear that I was supposed to wait until I had three layers: a frothy top layer, a clear liquid middle layer, and a golden solid bottom layer. I obviously had the froth on top. I was a little perplexed by the use of the word "clear" to describe the liquid: clear as in transparent? colorless? uncloudy? At first I was waiting for colorless, but then realized the liquid was later described as "golden," so that was probably the wrong definition; I eventually decided they meant not cloudy. The bottom layer gave me the most problems. After letting the ghee cook for way longer than the 45 minutes, I still couldn't see a solid layer on the bottom, but I was really nervous about all of the warnings that it would burn, so I decided it was done. And then I saw that there were actually little specks of brown sediment on the bottom; not the thick layer I'd been watching for, but definitely solids. They were darker than golden, but still smelled good and weren't burned. Anyway, I let the ghee cool for 10 minutes and then strained it through coffee filters into a sterilized jar. I'm not sure coffee filters were ideal ~ it took forever ~ but I couldn't find my cheesecloth.

The ghee smelled so tasty, and I was excited to use it for the aloo paratha tonight.

For the filling, I mixed up boiled potatoes (Yukon golds), toasted cumin seeds, ground coriander, minced ginger, chopped green chilis (from a can), fresh cilantro (from my indoor herb garden), salt, and mustard oil made with mustard seeds (I couldn't find black mustard seeds). The dough was whole wheat flour, white flour, salt, and water.

The dough is mixed and then rests for 30 minutes. I made eight little balls, pushed in the center, stuck in a ball of filling, and then sealed it up. The dough balls were then flattened and rolled out.

And then I cooked them for a couple minutes per side in my cast iron skillet, brushing them with ghee half way through. The kids had great fun watching them pouf up in the skillet, and we nicknamed the bread "balloon bread."

I placed them between kitchen towels and stored them in the (off) oven; they stayed warm while I prepared the rest of dinner: Indian-spiced chicken with tomato chutney from Cooking Light.

The chicken was absolutely delicious; even the kids loved it which kind of shocked me. The chutney was addictive (although we didn't bother offering it to the kids, both of whom dislike tomatoes). I really enjoyed the aloo paratha, especially with the chutney. Hubby had about 3 1/2 of them with his dinner and declared it was a shame that they were so time-consuming to make. The kids both tried theirs but didn't eat more than a bite or two.

All in all, a success, and I'm excited to try more of the Indian-spiced dishes I discovered when looking for something to accompany the aloo paratha.

Celebrating Mardi Gras with Emeril's jambalaya

Margaret chose Emeril Lagasse for our March Twitter avatar fun, and then she posted a delicious-sounding jambalaya for her avatar recipe.

We love jambalaya and we love pasta, so I bought all of the ingredients at the grocery store yesterday afternoon. And driving home with an easy soup on the menu for the night, I realized that it was Mardi Gras! What better way to celebrate than with jambalaya?!

You can find the recipe on Margaret's site. I followed, with only two minor changes. One, I was a little worried with the amount of spice Emeril calls for: 1/4 cup salt in the pasta water, almost 1/4 cup of his "essence" spice blend. I knew that his cheesey snacks had too much spice for the kids. So I cut...not by a lot. I probably used one or two tablespoons of salt in the pasta water and 2/3 of the spice blend. The other change was cooking time; my skillet was really overcrowded and I was worried about my meats getting fully cooked, so I cooked it a bit longer at the end. Despite the lengthy list of ingredients and number of steps in the process, it was actually pretty quick and easy to prepare...took about 50 minutes total.

We loved this dish! I served it with my first ever part-whole-grain ciabatta, which I made the night before, and which was delightful soaked in all the leftover juices.

It was not too spicy at all...hubby probably would've been perfectly happy with Emeril's amount of spice; this version was just perfect for the kids and me. My hubby said, "I think we should've been celebrating Mardi Gras every day this week!"

In other exciting news, my dad and stepmom bought me this indoor herbal garden for Christmas. I've used small bits of cilantro and basil before, but this recipe was the first time that I really got to use a bunch: fresh thyme and fresh basil. So fun!

Individual blueberry crisps

As the kids and I walked into the grocery store a couple of days ago, we were greeted by a store employee handing out little sample cups full of fresh blueberries. We couldn't resist. And even though they're not local, which makes me feel a little bit guilty, I couldn't resist buying a tub either. Sometimes in the midst of the longest winter EVER, you just need a break from apples and pears and other winter fruit.

Last night, I wanted to do something fun with the leftovers of the giant tub we'd purchased. I found this recipe for blueberry crisp from Cooking Light and was happy to see I had all of the ingredients on hand.

I didn't want to make a giant batch (the recipe makes an 11x17 baking dish) and we didn't have that many blueberries left, so I decided to make individual crisps instead.

Individual blueberry crisps
adapted from Cooking Light

2 cups fresh blueberries
2 tsp light brown sugar
1 tsp all-purpose flour
1 tsp lemon juice

1/4 cup all-purpose flour
3 tbsp packed light brown sugar
3 tbsp regular oats
1/4 tsp cinnamon
2 tbsp chilled unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

1. Preheat oven to 375F. Butter ramekins (I used three 7-ounce ramekins).
2. Toss washed blueberries with first three ingredients (brown sugar, flour, lemon juice).
3. Combine flour, brown sugar, oats, and cinnamon. Mix in butter pieces until mixture resembles coarse meal (with pastry blender or food processor or, because it's such a small amount, I actually just used my fingers to crumble it all).
4. Divide blueberries equally between the ramekins. Sprinkle the topping over the blueberries.
5. Bake in a 375F oven for 25 - 30 minutes until topping looks golden and yummy and blueberries are bubbling.

The verdict? As predicted, the baby girl (who doesn't like blueberries) didn't like it. Surprisingly, the little guy (who LOVES blueberries and all things fruit) didn't like it, either. But the hubby and I were not sad that the kids didn't eat theirs. We happily stole bites from their plates during dinner, and saved our own ramekins for after the kids went to bed...when we added a scoop of ice cream, of course. I will definitely make this recipe again!

Homemade cheese hoppers, take 2

I posted my Emeril Twitter avatar recipe on Wednesday: cheesy snacks that I hoped would taste like homemade cheese hoppers (a.k.a. Annie's cheese bunnies or other commercial cheesy snacks). While my hubby and I enjoyed them, they were way too overly spiced for the kids.

The very next day, Deb at Smitten Kitchen posted a recipe for homemade goldfish...how could I resist?

These were so incredibly easy to throw together, especially since Deb gives weights, so all I had to do was dump everything into a bowl sitting on my scale: all-purpose flour, whole wheat flour, grated sharp cheddar cheese, salt, onion powder, and butter. I threw the bowl full of ingredients into my food processor, let it mix for about 90 seconds until it formed a ball, and tossed it into the fridge for a bit.

The next part was the most time consuming: rolling the dough thinly, cutting out the shapes, and punching out eyes with a wooden skewer. I used my duck, butterfly, and cat mini cookie cutters. This recipe made three trays of treats, about 120, which cooked in 12 minutes in a 350F oven.

They were crispy, buttery, and cheesy. Most of the first tray were already gone by the time the other two trays were done cooking and cooling. This is definitely a make-again recipe...Sorry, Emeril!

Bake! Golden almond bars

This week's Bake! recipe was my pick...I've been eyeing the golden almond bars ever since I first opened this book.

I made the sweet tart dough early this morning. It was easy to mix in the food processor: flour, salt, baking powder, butter, and eggs. I seem to have the same problem with NM's tart dough recipes every time...he doesn't call for extra water to be added, but I always have to put some in to get my dough to form a ball. This time, I added a little under a teaspoon of water, and that seemed perfect.

The dough was easy to roll out, but I had a hard time getting it to be big enough without the dough ripping. Finally I realized that I was using my giant jelly roll pan, which was way too big. So I sized down to my smaller jelly roll and the dough fit perfectly.

I lightly toasted 3 1/2 cups of slivered almonds while I made the topping: unsalted butter, sugar, light brown sugar, dark corn syrup, salt, and heavy cream.

Right after sliding the pan into the oven, I went back to the cookbook and re-read the notes. Which is when I realized that these are supposed to be made in a 9x3x2...in other words, my cake pan! No wonder I had such a challenging time getting the dough and the toppings to fit...AND no wonder the bars seemed so thin compared to the picture in the book.

No worries, they turned out fine. Well, actually we did have one major worry...after our first taste, hubby and I began to worry that we'd eat the whole pan! These are dangerously good.