New Christmas toy

Hubby surprised me with a pasta press this Christmas. Apparently last year during our first unprocessed month, I was bemoaning the fact that, although I'd gotten pretty good at making fresh pasta, I still had to buy elbows for mac-n-cheese and tuna salad and rotini or fusilli for other pasta salads and casseroles.

I hadn't really thought about it much - when I made mac-n-cheese, I just used fettuccini...a little unconventional but just as tasty.

But apparently after hearing me complain a few times, my wonderful hubby jumped online, ordered me the pasta press for my stand mixer, and it's been sitting in the closet of our guest bedroom ever since.


Last night, I mixed up my normal pasta dough (3 eggs and 8.5 ounces of white whole wheat flour) and tried it out. We tested out both the rotini and fusilli plates.


The dough was a little too dry, I think,and the fusilli didn't curl, but we figured it out. We served the pasta with some sauce we received from one of hubby's coworkers for Christmas, and along with some leftover broccoli slaw and Christmas ham, it made quite an easy and delicious dinner!

Meat pies with whole wheat pie crust

Do you read Terry Pratchett? We love his Discworld series. We try to get one or two of his novels on audiobooks for our summer travels each year...we just love his dry sense of humor and all of the off-beat culture references.

Anyway, one of his characters is a fairly unsavory fellow, and he pops up selling yucky meat pies in many of the books. Every time I make these pasties, my hubby calls them Dibbler's meat pies. These, of course, are way better. :)

As promised, I took our leftover potroast, and used it to make these pasties. (Hubby was thrilled to discover that after taking out the three cups needed for the pasties, there was still a lunch of meat leftover for him.)

This is a Cook's Country recipe. It was published with their Joe Booker stew as a way to use up leftover stew. When I made the recipe several years ago, we thought the stew was okay, but the pasties were divine. Since then, I've made them with all sorts of similar left overs: stew, pot roast, brisket, etc. They're always amazing.

One of the biggest changes I've made since we began our unprocessed journey is my attempt to eliminate white flour. So, knowing these pasties were on the menu, I went in search of whole wheat pie crust recipes. There weren't that many out there. I found two from Bob's Red Mill, and eventually settled on this one. The other one was 100% whole wheat, and I just wasn't sure I was brave enough to try 100% my first time out.

I had also read recently that you can substitute coconut oil (which is used a lot in unprocessed baking) in place of shortening in pastry recipes. I never buy shortening and usually just replace it with butter, but I have a big tub of coconut oil, and so I was happy to try it.

The crust was easy to work with and absolutely delicious - flaky, buttery, a tiny bit sweet. You would never know that it had coconut oil in it, or that it was made with over 50% whole wheat flour.

Anyway, dinner was amazing. Hubby said he would be willing to eat it every night of the week. Here's what I did:

Whole wheat pasties
pasties adapted from Cook's Country, pie crust adapted from Bob's Red Mill

for the pasties
3 T unsalted butter
1 onion, diced
1/2 pound ground meat (we usually use pork, but only had turkey this time)
1 tsp dried thyme
1/4 tsp ground allspice
3 cups leftover pot roast or stew (meat, veggies, broth)

for the crust
1 c (4.5 oz) all-purpose flour
1 1/2 c (6.75 oz) whole wheat pastry flour
1 T sugar
1 tsp salt
7 T solid coconut oil
12 T unsalted butter
8 T ice water

1. Melt the butter in a large skillet. Add the onion and saute for a few minutes until softened. Add the meat and spices and cook until the meat is no longer pink, about 8 minutes. Add the leftover pot roast or stew and cook until the liquid has evaporated, 5 - 10 minutes. Put the mixture in a medium bowl, mash it up, and set it aside to cool.

2. For the crust, put the flours, sugar, and salt into the bowl of a food processor. Pulse a few times until mixed. Add the coconut oil and pulse a few times. Then add the unsalted butter and pulse about 8 times, until the mix is coarse, but you can still see chunks of butter. Dump the mix into a medium sized bowl.

3. Add the ice water, 2 tablespoons at a time, and press the dough together with a rubber spatula until the dough starts to hold together. You still want to have sandy parts falling off. Divide the dough into two equal portions, each on a piece of plastic wrap. Use the plastic wrap to fold the dough over on itself several times until it holds together. Then wrap each piece up and put it in the fridge to chill.

4. When ready to make the pasties, preheat the oven to 450, and put a silpat or a piece of parchment on a baking sheet.

5. Roll out the dough and cut it into pieces twice as big as you want your pasties to be. I make different sizes: big ones for the hubby, medium ones for me, and little ones for my little ones. :) Put a large scoop of filling in the middle of the dough (again, the size of the scoop will depend on the size of the crust -- experiment). Then paint the edges of the dough with water, fold the dough over, and use the tines of a fork to crimp the edges. Cut a few vent holes on the top of each.

6. Bake the pasties for 25 minutes. (You can also freeze the pasties on a tray before baking; wrap them in foil, and when you're ready to bake them, just take them out and throw them on a baking sheet. You may need to increase the baking time slightly.)

Enjoy!

Unprocessed October: Week one meals

Well, we've just about survived week one of October Unprocessed. I survived dinner at conferences (brought cheese and crackers that passed the kitchen test, and ate the family's stew when I got home), survived my first debate dinner (brought plain yogurt and homemade granola, an apple, and peanut butter), we survived a play intermission (brought our own snacks: fruit sticks and smoothie pouch that passed the kitchen test), and resisted a very tempting restaurant dinner invitation. Here's what we managed to eat during this busier-than-usual week:

Her: leftover whole wheat waffle, maple syrup, pistachios, apple slices, banana-chocolate-pb-kefir smoothie

Him: leftover whole wheat waffle, apple slices, homemade blueberry syrup,fruit-yogurt-kefir smoothie

Same thing

Her: pistachios, whole wheat banana chocolate chip muffin (without the added flavor, cinnamon chips, or walnuts; using all white whole wheat flour), apple slices, turkey roll-ups, banana-chocolate-pb-kefir smoothie

Him: whole wheat apple muffin (using all white whole wheat flour), apple slices, turkey roll-ups, fruit-yogurt-kefir smoothie

Her: banana-pb-chocolate-kefir smoothie, turkey roll-ups, energy bite (dates, chocolate chips, peanut butter, oats, and a little honey), apple slices, whole wheat banana chocolate chip muffin

Him: fruit-yogurt-kefir smoothie, whole wheat apple muffin, apple slices, turkey roll-ups

Hubby and I took leftovers from dinner for our lunches each day, along with a kefir smoothie and a piece of fruit. I didn't get a picture of Thursday's dinner because the kids ate early with Nana and hubby and I ate as we walked in the door from conferences; I made beef stew from ATK's slow cooker cookbook.

Cilantro-lime grilled chicken, mini bell peppers with cilantro-lime-sour-cream filling, broccoli slaw from the new SK cookbook

Grilled chicken, veggie hobo packets (potatoes, onions, mushrooms, zucchini, bell pepper), pear slices

Homemade whole wheat fettuccini with broccoli, leftover grilled chicken, and mushrooms in a homemade alfredo sauce

Homemade chicken noodle soup with whole wheat noodles, grilled cheese sandwiches on homemade whole wheat bread, apple slices, and organic yogurt

100% whole wheat lunches!

On Monday, I begin making four school lunches each morning because somehow (don't ask me how), my little one heads off to kindergarten this week.

I think the biggest change is going to be preparation... I can occasionally fly by the seat of my pants when making lunch for hubby and myself... And I was able to punt with the little guy's lunch a couple of times last year. But she doesn't eat the pre-prepared organic snacks (jammy sammies, smoothie pouches, applesauce pouches) that I used as emergency back-ups for him. And they prefer such different foods. And then I have to take into account time: I need to put in easy-to-eat foods that they can get through in their super short lunch period. And the little guy is much hungrier these days.

Anyway, I need to prepare. Today, I spent four hours of the afternoon making some 100% whole wheat lunch box goodies: Hamelman's toast bread, KAF's whole wheat blueberry muffins (for him), KAF's whole wheat chocolate chip muffins (for her, made with a little less sugar and less than half of the called-for chocolate chips), and KAF's whole wheat chocolate chip cookies (for all of us, made with half the called-for chips, in tablespoon sized for this weekend and teaspoon sized for lunches).

I've started making a lunch schedule, too, which hangs next to our weekly dinner plan. Wish me luck!

Whole wheat cinnamon goodness

While planning for our unprocessed month, I followed a link that someone tweeted for 100% whole wheat cinnamon rolls. I meant to make them during our month, but never got around to it. Then King Arthur posted an apple-cinnamon pull-apart roll, and I knew that I could wait no longer.

My recipe was a total mishmash and a total success.

Dough: I browsed around for a 100% whole wheat sweet dough recipe, and found this one on the Fresh Loaf that looked promising (and used honey in place of processed sugar - double bonus!). I followed that recipe and method, using 100% white whole wheat, honey, and a combination of buttermilk and milk.

Filling: I made a cinnamon-sugar mixture, with about 60 g light brown sugar, 60 g white sugar, and 5 g fancy cinnamon.

Frosting: I used my usual recipe ~ about a tablespoon of milk and a tablespoon of unsalted butter, heated gently, and mixed with a pinch of salt, a teaspoon of vanilla, and enough sifted powdered sugar to make a drizzle-able frosting

When the dough was finished, I cut it into several big chunks: I made a little pan based on my normal cinnamon roll recipe (brushed with melted butter, filled with some of the cinnamon-sugar) and stuck it in the fridge for later. 

I made two little trays of apple-cinnamon pull-apart rolls - one for dessert last night; one for breakfast this morning. I mostly followed KAF's process: I cut the dough into little chunks (I started out weighing and then gave up and switched to eye-balling), rolled them in butter (not included in the KAF recipe, but why wouldn't you?!), and dipped them in the cinnamon-sugar mixture. I put three or four little chunks in a buttered muffin cup, put three or four tiny pieces of chopped apple on top, scattered a little streusel (based on this KAF recipe, but I didn't actually measure anything), and three or four more little pieces of dough. I baked one pan immediately and put one in the fridge; both turned out perfectly after 15 minutes at 350º. The rolls were easy to remove from the pan, even without wrappers, and I drizzled a tiny bit of frosting on each.

These rolls were absolutely delicious - everyone in the family loved them, even the little girl who normally balks at anything with cooked fruit. The whole wheat sweet dough was perfect; there is no way you could tell that it was made with 100% whole wheat and no refined sugar, even on the little pieces that weren't coated with filling.

I stuck the last bit of dough, the bowl of cinnamon-sugar, and the cup of leftover frosting into the fridge for some more cinnamony goodness this weekend. I can't wait!