Weekends are for Waffles

This is one of my favorite recipes to make on a lazy Saturday or Sunday morning.  The great thing about this recipe, besides the wonderful taste, is that it's pretty versatile, like most of the recipes from this cookbook.  I've made it as waffles or pancakes, with whole wheat or white flour, with blueberries or strawberries, etc.  Any leftovers are good as new later in the week if you reheat them in the toaster.

Berry Good Waffles
From: Going Wild in the Kitchen by Leslie Cerrier
Grade: A!  Very easy to make and always delicious!

I often cut this recipe in half since there's only 2 of us - makes about 3 waffles.

2 eggs
2 cups all purpose flour (the original recipe calls for whole wheat pastry flour, but I don't use that because someone in our house won't touch the stuff...)
1 tsp baking powder (the original recipe calls for 2 tbsp - you only need this much leavening power if you're using only whole wheat flour, or if you want to have some really crazy looking pancakes...)
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups milk (original calls for apple juice)
1/3 cup canola oil
1 tsp vanilla (original calls for 4 tbsp vanilla, but like I've said before, I'm not made of money and 1 tsp does just fine)
1 cup blueberries (frozen works as well as fresh)
1 tbsp honey

I love this cookbook because the instructions for most recipes are the same as this one - mix everything in a bowl.  So easy!  Then just spoon onto your griddle, pan, whatever (I use nonstick spray for every batch) and cook to desired doneness.  Best with maple syrup, of course!  If you're using strawberries or any other berry you like, just make sure the pieces are as small as blueberries, or else you'll have trouble keeping the waffles/pancakes together.

Love = bread!

One of these days I should give up the charade that this is a "cooking" blog and acknowledge that it's actually a baking blog.  Here are a few recipes from the last couple of weeks that have been lingering on my desktop, waiting to be shared.

Oh, and by the way, here is this week's excuse for not blogging more often:

 

We've been renovating our bathroom.  Like, down to the studs.  This is why we can't have nice things...

Focaccia with onions
From: Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan
Grade: A- (Not too hard to make, though time consuming like any bread, with a nice texture and taste.  Added points for having lots of fun slapping the dough around!)

Dough:
2 1/2 tsp dry yeast
2 c lukewarm water
6 1/2 cups all purpose flour (unbleached is always preferable)
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tbsp salt

Topping:
2 tbsp exta virgin olive oil + 1/4 cup for the emulsion
4 cups very thinly sliced onion rounds
2 tbsp water (for emulsion)
1 tsp salt (for emulsion)

Amaranth Bread

This is a first for me and the blog - I attempted my own bread recipe for this entry!  Well, I suppose it's not such a big deal - I just made some substitutions to the recipe for quick-rising white bread in the Joy of Cooking, but still, it counts as an original creation!

That said, it needs some tweaking, so I'm open to suggestions for how to improve this bread.  My assessment of this bread was, "It tastes like it's healthy," which was probably true but not what I was going for.  However it's hard (at least for me) to find good recipes for whole wheat breads, so I figure I'll keep fidling with this one a little more.

I also wanted to experiment with amaranth, a grain I'd heard of before but never worked with.  It is very small and round and the Joy of Cooking claims that you can put it into bread raw; however, I didn't realize that when you do this, it's basically like you're adding seeds, and the stuff comes off and gets everywhere in the kitchen every time you touch the loaf.  So perhaps I need to cook it first next time...

Amaranth Bread
Adapted from: The Joy of Cooking (Quick-rising white bread)
Grade: B (definitely healthy, but could be a lot tastier with softer texture)

The original recipe makes 2 loaves, so I cut that in half and subbed some of the whole wheat flour and amaranth for 1 cup of bread flour. 

1 1/4 tsp yeast
1/8 cup warm water
2 cups bread flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup amaranth, uncooked
1/3 cup sunflower seeds
1 cup warm water
1/2 tbsp melted butter
some honey (I don't remember how much but I was trying to replace the 1 tbsp sugar)
1/2 tbsp salt

Dissolve the yeast in water in a bowl and let stand for 5-10 minutes until nice and bubbly.  Add 1 1/2 cups bread flour, the remaining water, butter, honey, and salt and mix.  Add the remaining flours and amaranth in increments until the dough comes together and is moist but not sticky.  Knead the dough for about 10 minutes, incorporating the sunflower seeds in small amounts.  Place the dough in an oiled bowl, cover with saran wrap, and let it rise 1 1/2 hours. 

Grease your loaf pan.  Punch the bread down and form it into a loaf.  Let it rise in the bread pan, covered with saran wrap, for another 1 1/2 hours.

Bake the bread for 10 minutes at 450F, then for another 30 minutes at 350F, or until the loaf sounds hollow when tapped.  Let cool on a rack before cutting (the sunflower seeds and amaranth made this loaf a little harder to hold together).

On another note, we had an epic fail in the meringue department this evening.  I was quite put out about it, but vowed to buy a dozen eggs next time I'm at the store and keep trying until I get it right.

Homemade Pasta

Sorry for the long absence - turns out it's a lot harder than I thought to get my computer and my cookbooks in the same place.

This has been a pretty carb-heavy week, but I'll start with the project I was most excited about - homemade linguine.

We made two types - regular, for lack of a better term, egg pasta, and spinach pasta (hence the green color).  On paper this process doesn't look so hard, but it took us a good hour or two to get it right.

The recipe and instructions come from a new cookbook I got for Christmas: "Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking," by Marcella Hazan.  I'd give it a B: the wow factor was fun, but it was a lot of work to make and didn't have any particularly noticeable taste.

Yellow Pasta Dough
1 cup unbleached flour
2 eggs

Green Pasta Dough
1 1/2 cups unbleached flour
2 eggs
1/2 lb fresh spinach, cooked*

*To prepare the spinach, rinse with cold water, discard stems, and place in a pot.  Add 1/2 tsp salt and cook until the spinach is wilted, about 5 minutes.  Drain well, then squeeze the spinach gently with your hands or a towel to remove as much water as you can.  Chop finely.