Grilled Garlic-Rosemary Potatoes & Apple Cake {Cook’s Illustrated Challenge}

This is the second month of my personal challenge to myself to cook two random recipes from my collection of Cook’s Illustrated magazines. And again, instead of cooking throughout the month, I waited until the last week.

Will I ever learn?

Probably not.

This month, my recipes were Grilled Garlic-Rosemary Potatoes (July/August 2007) and Apple Cake (September/October 2001).

The potatoes involved an interesting method of infusing oil with the rosemary and garlic flavors and then brushing that oil on the potatoes for the cooking process. And the real shocker, to me at least, is that the majority of the cooking happened in (hushed voice) the microwave.

I know, right. I didn’t think the test kitchen at Cook’s Illustrated EVER used the microwave.

I served them alongside a steak with a red wine peppercorn sauce that I made up as I went. It was okay, but nothing to really write home about, so I didn’t really write down what I did with the sauce.

I think the larger potatoes in my dish were done just about right while the smaller ones were a little over-done. However, they were good and had really good, yet subtle, garlic and rosemary flavor. And since I always love to have another way to use the fresh herbs out of my garden, this is definitely one that will stay in my repertoire.

Next up was the Apple Cake.

A while back I made an Apple Cake in an Iron Skillet recipe from The Pioneer Woman Cooks. It was good, but much like the author of the Cook’s Illustrated article mentions about some recipes that she tried, it was a little soggy. I was very interested to make this one to see if I liked it any better.

The answer: yes…. and no.

I loved the texture of the cake. The batter was very similar to my pound cake in thickness and texture. But the finished cake was quite a bit lighter. I think this is due to the almost “muffin method” that was used of incorporating the butter into the flour (to resemble coarse meal) then adding the liquid. While I’ve done that method in other baked goods, it was a new technique to use on a cake for me.

The presentation of the apples on top was really pretty (and quite photogenic as evidenced by the sheer number of pictures I took of it).

However, the most important element, the flavor, fell a little flat for me. I’d like to do some tinkering with this recipe to see if I can bring out some more apple flavor or enhance the apple flavor with the addition of a spice or two.

Don’t get me wrong. It was good as pretty much anything out of Cook’s Illustrated is, but I think I would probably try adding another ingredient or two to give the flavor more depth.

I must say that I am enjoying being exposed to new techniques and dishes on a regular basis.

Have you tried anything new lately?

~~~

Update

My next two recipes are:

Issue #70, September/October 2004, page 20, Sesame Noodles with Chicken

Issue #53, November/December 2001, Page24-25, Buttery Shortbread

Feel free to cook along with me.

BBA Challenge #23 – Pane Siciliano

Like the Pain de Campagne, I made my pâte fermentée  for the Pane Siciliano using my wild yeast sourdough starters.  I figure that I’ve got the starter and I ought to take any and every opportunity I can to use it.  And, I figure that with these breads that use a pre-fermented dough already, adding the flavor of a sour dough starter certainly wouldn’t hurt.  This the formula I am using for the wild yeast pâte fermentée:

10 ounces starter 
2 ounces bread flour
2 ounces a.p. flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1-2 ounces water

It rises in about the same time that Mr. Reinhart mentions in the book and by every way that I can tell, acts exactly the same as the instant yeast version. 

 

But I tell you what… Pane Siciliano, I love you.

I had to make a quick emergency trip to the grocery store to get semolina flour before I could get started.  After feeling the texture of the semolina, I was worried about the dough coming together and getting a good window “pain” test in a reasonable amount of time.

I felt my fears were well founded based upon this after my initial mixing.

   

But I tell you what, after about 8 minutes of kneading in at the gentle “hands” of the Kitchen Aid, it turned into about the most gorgeous dough I have ever seen.

 

Smooth.  Soft.  Stretchy.

And it had this beautiful earthy tone to it, I think due to the hue of the semolina flour. 

And the window “pain?”  Faah-getaboutit.  It’s not a very well focused picture, but this is one of the most beautiful windowpane tests I’ve done in this challenge.

Without a good two foot long surface to roll out the dough ropes on, I had to improvise just a bit.

By the way, I have added a large wooden cutting board like this one (in the 24”x18” size) to my kitchen wish list in case anyone is reading who might be interested in such knowledge.  It would be so nice to have a surface larger than a small pizza peel to work on with my bread.

But back to Pane Siciliano.

Shaping these guys was kind of fun.  The little “S” shape is so cute and decorative. 

The shaped loaves went into the fridge for the night.  I took one out to bake the next day and then did the other two the day after that. 

 

In shaping, I think I ended up degassing the dough more than I intended or wanted to.  My finished product actually had more big holes in it than I thought it would, but not as many as I might have liked.  

We really loved this bread.  The crunchy nuttiness of the crust and sesame seeds combined with the sweet softness of the interior bread was just perfect.  My man said that it might be his favorite so far… not counting the cinnamon rolls, raisin bread and Casatiello, which of course has meat and stuff in it.  But for a dinner party that is begging for some nice crusty artisan bread, this is absolutely the bread I will make.  No doubt about it.

Don’t count your chickens before they hatch… literally {Foodie Friday??}

Third grade at our school is kind of a big deal.  The kids look forward to third grade  for years.  Not because of the wonderful learning experiences that they will encounter or any other such nonsense.  It’s because of chickens.

Or to be more specific baby chicks. 

In third grade, a former teacher brings chicken eggs to each class during their unit toward the end of the year about birds.  They are kept in an incubator and the class turns them and watches them hatch.  The idea is that after they have hatched, the children are able to take one home for the last two weeks of school to take care of it if they want to.

Sarah really wanted to.  And I really wanted to.  Heck, I was ready to build a coop and keep that chick and let it bring us eggs.  Mike just was not on board with it that much. 

But when it came down to it, not enough of the chicks hatched for every child who wanted one to get to take one home.  In fact, I think they ended up just 1 chick short.  And guess who was the last to turn in her form that she wanted one and was therefore at the end of the “line.” 

Oh, yeah.  It was a sad week around our house as the realization sunk in that she would not get to take home a chick.  And it was even harder that she and I had been having conversations about how she has felt excluded by the girls in her class this year.  She never verbalized it this way, but it felt to me like just one more way she was going to be excluded.

But it was easy to fix.  A local feed store had some chicks and one of her best friends didn’t end up with one either.  So we took both of them to each pick one out.

Here, I’ll let Sarah tell you about it.

Pardon the blurriness.  Not sure what happened there. 

Meet Peeps…

  

… and Streak….

We joked that we should have named them “Nugget” and “Strip” after I saw this blog the other day.  We’d heard that they don’t really like to be alone, so we decided to keep them together and have them stay part of the time at our house and part at our friend’s house.  They had changed a lot when we got them back to our house.

Today is the last day of school and since we can’t commit to keeping them right now, we will take them back up to the school and they will have good homes to go to.  We had a lot of fun with them and Sarah will miss having them in her room.

So long Peeps and Streak.  We’ll miss you.

I’m curious.  Do you or have you ever had chickens?  Please tell me about your experience.  I’m still trying to work on Mike so that maybe we can have a couple of chickens one of these days. 

okie-dokie artichokie

Last week the kids went to the grocery store with me.  With my work schedule and their school and extracurricular activities, this doesn’t happen all that often any more.  My husband is usually the one that is running to the grocery store for me to get this or that; he usually goes after the kids are in bed, in fact.  And, honestly, when I do go, I try to avoid them going with me because let’s face it, taking your kids to the grocery store is not the least stressful thing you can do.  And at times, it can be the most.

Can I get a witness?

But, last week, we needed to go and I wanted them to come with me just so I could spend some extra time with them.  So, in an effort to give them some ownership in the shopping trip, I told them they could each pick out one thing, one grocery item, while we were there.

My little man, in his infinite 4 year old wisdom, picked out Gushers.  You know, they’re kind of like fruit snacks, but worse. 

But my princess picked out artichokes.

Really?  Artichokes?

Yes.  Really.

We were walking through the  produce section and she saw them and asked what they were.  I think she found them interesting looking and as I described picking off the leaves one at a time I think she just found the whole idea fascinating.  So she decided that was her thing.

Well, okay.

I was supposed to cook them Friday night, but with some storms that rolled through that afternoon, our power was out most of the day. 

Then I was supposed to cook them Saturday but Mike’s mom called with a tv emergency and we all packed up and went to see her for dinner and to help set up her new tv.

Sunday…. well, this was one of those Sundays when we just didn’t stop from sun-up to sun-down.

FINALLY, last night, I came home a few minutes early and was able to cook them to go with dinner.

The verdict?

They liked them.  Sarah said they weren’t her favorite, but she and Nathan both tried and liked them okay.  And you know, with a child that was willing to step out on a limb and try something new, I’m not going to argue with that.

And speaking of trying new things, Sarah tried some Sushi with me on Mother’s Day…. and loved it. 

There are not many things that could make me more happy.

What are some surprising things that your kids eat?

Field Day {Mama Braggin’ Monday}

Field Day at school was a couple of weeks ago.  I did not get to attend this year.  Although now that I think about it, I’m not quite sure why I’m specifying this year since I haven’t attended field day since she was in Kindergarten because of work.  You know, there are only so many things that I can take off work for. 

But back to the story. 

Field day was a couple of weeks ago.  Sarah won a ribbon this year.  It’s kind of a big deal to me because this child, while not uncoordinated, has never really been fully inclined towards sports. 

The ribbon she won was for the long distance run.

She’s come a long way since her Pre-K field day when she was paired with one other girl for every race…. and lost…. every race.  That was the worst field day ever.

How did your kids do during Field Day this year?

BBA Challenge #22 – Pain de Campagne

This bread is what I would call rustically refined.  As it’s name describes (“campagne” meaning rustic/country/countryside in French), it has a country feel with some additional grain added through the use of some wheat and/or rye flour.  And yet, it can be shaped in many artistic ways giving it a certain level of sophistication.

I made the pâte fermentée (pre-fermented dough) with a mixture of 5 ounces of each my wheat and white sour dough starters.  So not only did I use a pre-ferment, but I used a pre-ferment to make my pre-ferment. 

I’m even confusing myself at this point… so don’t feel bad if that last sentence lost you. 

I love having my trusty Kitchen Aid to do the bulk of the kneading for me.  It allows me to multi-task.  As she worked away kneading my dough, I busily washed dishes and cleaned things up in the kitchen a bit. 

But I still just cannot resist getting my hands on a nice soft ball of dough and hand kneading if just for a couple of minutes.  There’s something almost mystical or magical about how flour and water can come together to make a dough. 

But I digress.

 

 

I showed my kids the different shapes that I could make and we were split on what to do.  Nathan liked the “spikey balls” as he called them and Sarah and I liked the épi  (sheaf of wheat).  You can imagine my squeal of delight when I realized I would have enough dough to do both shapes. 

Baking was a bit of a frenzied time.  My husband had left town the night before which is part of what made me feel like I had the time to bake.  But then, everything was ready to bake just as I was sitting down to dinner with the kids.  And then it was time to help them get ready for bed. 

So, I put a loaf of bread in and do the whole misting water every 30 seconds thing then set the timer for 10 minutes.  Run back to their room and help my son with his shower. 

Timer beeps. 

Run back to the kitchen and turn the loaves 180 degrees.  Run back to check up and make sure Nathan is getting dressed. 

Timer beeps. 

Run back to the kitchen and take one loaf out and start the process again for the next loaf with the misting every 30 seconds thing.  Run back to Nathan’s room and begin reading a story. 

Timer beeps. 

Run back to the kitchen and turn loaf 180 degrees…. okay you get the idea. 

I was exhausted by the time everything was baked.

 

Taste:  very nice.  I think using sourdough starter really added an extra dimension of taste.  Nice crunchy crust.  I love the épi (sheaf of wheat).  LOTS of crunchy crust.  And easy to pull apart into little individual rolls.  Nathan was very excited that I made a “spikey ball” and he was thrilled to give one to his teacher at school the next day.    Totally would made this again.  Especially an épi.

Note:  I did, in fact, make it again.  I was much more pleased with how my épi looked.  My cuts were not on enough of an angle the first time.  The second time turned out much better.

Because nothing says “I love you” like a tornado and a port-o-potty

Nathan’s little Pre-K class had a Mother’s day breakfast on Friday morning. 

That morning as he was eating some cereal, I said to him, “I get to come have breakfast with you at your class this morning.”

“I know,” he said.  “And Mrs. B says, ‘Moms go first.’”  Clearly that had been talking about the etiquette of the breakfast quite a bit.  I love that.

I enjoy these things so much.  It is a great time to visit with some of the other moms and I also get to see my son interacting with his classmates and teacher.  But most of all I just LOVE all the little things they make for us for special occasions like this.  The handmade cards, the flowers they potted, the pictures they drew… it’s all just about more than a mama can handle.

I got to his classroom on Friday and he took me to his chair.  There were all kinds of goodies sitting there.  A “#1 Mom” pin, a flower they had potted, and a wrapped gift with a card attached.  He immediately showed me the card and started describing everything he drew.

“This is a house and this is the tornado that’s swirling around,” as he moves his hand around in circles really fast.  “And this is another house but these clouds keep this tornado from getting to this house.”

Right.

At this point I was so tickled and giggling.  I knew I looked a little like an idiot to the other moms.  They were all opening the wrapped gift and “oooh-ing and aaahhh-ing” over whatever it was that their son had created. 

(Have I mentioned that it is a class of all boys?  11 boys.  Oh dear.)

(And have I mentioned that his teacher is a saint?) 

I opened mine and it was sweet.  I saw the handprint and the little picture drawn at the bottom and my heart swooned.

I was asking him about the picture at the bottom, “Is that a house and some flowers?”

“No!” he replied.  “THAT’s a port-o-potty!”

I love boys.  I never would have gotten a tornado and a port-o-potty from my daughter for Mother’s Day.  And I never would have laughed so hard.  Never.

Then came the little program.  They all stood at the front of the class and sang a song.  All of them except for Nathan of course.  He tolerated standing up there, but didn’t sing a word.

And then came the reading of the interviews she did with each boy. 

(I posted some answers to previous interviews that my kids have done about me last year.)

I blew tons of kisses to him when his teacher read that he said, “She has to be 14 or 15 years old.”  And you really know you’re doing some of the right things when your son answers, “When we are together we go to Bible study.”  Then I hear, “I love her because I love to hug her and kiss her.”

Oh be still my heart!

Sarah’s class didn’t do a part because of some other things going on, but they did make a gift and I also received this note in the mail from her children’s choir teacher at church.

“Dear Mom, Thank you for cooking for me.  You make the best wakamolly and meatlofe. You are nice. <3, Sarah”

Just to be clear, I don’t make guacamole and meatloaf together. 

And I also am not entirely sure what the picture is on the top half of the card.

 
I love these kids and I am so glad to be their mom.

Especially when I get a tornado and a port-o-potty for Mother’s Day.

I could learn a thing or two from her {Mama Braggin’ Monday}

I was going to post a picture today of my daughter with her 3rd place ribbon from Field Day.  But that will have to wait.  Because I think I have an even bigger reason to be proud of her.

When we started this school year, I was a little concerned about the grouping of girls in Sarah’s class this year.  It seemed like she was put in a class with an entire group of girls who have kind of banded together over the last year or two.  I could definitely see this group becoming the “IT group” once they hit the middle and upper school years.  There’s something about how they try to act so much older than they are.  But I never said a word to her about it.  I certainly didn’t want to put any ideas in her head if there was really nothing to be concerned about.

We went through most of the year with my husband and I seeing little things going on like Sarah usually eating lunch by herself and things like that.  But Sarah never said a word about it so I thought that maybe she didn’t notice.  Maybe that’s how she wanted things.

Then, as I felt prompted because of a Bible study that I was doing in January, I asked her if she had encountered any one that she would think of as a “mean girl.”  She immediately said yes.  But, I think she didn’t want to gossip, so she wouldn’t name any names… but told me all the girls in her class that it wasn’t. 

“There are three,” she said.  “And it’s not Cindy, Ali or Debbie.  So that gives you an idea.”  (There are only 7 girls in the class and I changed the names.)  It was cute the way she did it and I had to stifle a giggle.

As we have continued through this second half of the school year, the situation has just continued.  She even said one day recently, “I wish I was in a different class.”  Because truth be told, even though Cindy, Ali and Debbie aren’t what she would term as mean, they certainly are not being her friends.  Nor are they being very inclusive of her. 

And to be honest…. I feel it on the mom side as well.  It’s not that these moms are mean, necessarily, but they are a group that I just feel unwelcome around.

So as I have thought about it over the last couple of days, I took hold of an opportunity I had the other night to tell Sarah how proud I was of how she has handled it this year.

We were talking one evening after I got home from work and the subject of friends came up in a completely different context.  I was encouraging her to make sure she was inclusive of everyone in a particular circumstance.  She then began to talk about how she has felt excluded most of the year in her class and she actually teared up a bit.  Clearly this had affected her more than I had realized. 

But do you know what she has done all year?  She has gone into that classroom with her head held high and not let it stop her.  She continues to talk to these girls and show kindness to them.  There has not been one bad thing that she has come home and said about them.  There has been no report of her lashing out at them.  She just continues on in kindness, knowing that she has friends in other classes.

I was able to tell her that night that I admired how she has shown grace to those who have hurt her this year.  She has acted like the secure child of God that she is.  And as I told her, I wish I acted like that more often.

I also took hold of the teaching opportunity and pointed out what a blessing it was to learn how it feels to be excluded so that we know not to do it to other people.  She agreed.

So as I sit here, I wonder what causes these other moms, some of whom I know have been in the classroom quite a bit, to not notice the one girl that their daughters leave out of everything.  I know there are a lot of personalities and dynamics that I can’t go into here, but I have to wonder, do they not encourage inclusiveness to their daughters?  Does my own daughter truly have any idea what an example she has been to me this year?

I told her that this kind of stuff doesn’t go away as you get older and that I feel excluded a lot.  But I also told her that I believe God had granted her the grace to deal with the situation and that I admired the way she has shown grace to those around her.

Is there something that you admire about your own daughter or son?  Have you looked for something to admire in them?  Have you told them?  If not, find a way to do that today.

I reminisce and wish you a Happy Mother’s Day {Foodie Friday}

I began to reminisce today as a friend of mine who teaches Kindergarten was talking about how she was working on a project full of awesome Kindergartener quotes for their Mother’s Day party at school tomorrow.  I thought back a couple of years to when Sarah was in Kindergarten and I remembered the cookbook that her teacher put together full of recipes that the children dictated to her. 

I remember that as I read it, I laughed so hard that I cried. And probably peed a little. 

You know it’s probably true.  And guys… it’s just a reality of life for us girls.  Get over it.

So, for your enjoyment today, I will share with you my Brownie Recipe as my daughter dictated it to her Kindergarten teacher three years ago.

~~~~

Brownies
As told by Sarah

I know just how to make these because we cooked them up last night!

You need:
4 eggs
Lots of sugar
1 cup of powder
Melted chocolate – the kind that are in bowls at the store and you melt it

Put it in a bowl and mix it with a spoon – like stir it (motioning stirring with hands).  Then put it in a pan that is a rectangle.  But before that you have to put this blue thing in and spray it.  Then cook it in the oven.  The oven is really hot!  Cook it for maybe 1 hour or 2.  Then you let it cool outside the oven.  Everybody gets to eat them but they have to be in small rectangles so everyone gets one, OK?

~~~

Now if you compare it to my actual recipe, she’s not all that far off.  Quite a bit closer, at least, than the boy who described cooking pasta at 7 degrees for 8 minutes and then letting it cool off. 

Did your kids’ teacher do this project with them at any point?  I’d love for you to share their “recipe.”

I hope each of you has a wonderful Mother’s Day this weekend. 

Cheese fries, a concert and a lot of hours in the car.

Hello my friends. Sorry I haven’t been around so far this week. I’ve still been trying to finish up defensive driving for that silly ticket. And I didn’t have any time over the weekend to work on it.

“Why,” you ask?

Well, we were just a little busy going to concerts and eating crawfish. And believe me, concerts and crawfish take precedence over defensive driving any day of the week and twice on Saturday.

Literally.

I found out a while back that Casting Crowns would be in concert here in the DFW area (Grand Prairie to be exact) on Saturday, May 1st. Well, it just so happened that we also had two (that’s TWO, people) crawfish boils to go to that day. Sorry, Crowns, but you get beat out by crawfish hands down.

Then I realized that they would be in none other but my favorite college town, College Station, on the night before. Just imagine… a pilgrimage to College Station plus Casting Crowns. Well, my friends, that just equals awesome and WHOOP at the same time.

So I hopped on the Twitter and tweeted something about it to Mark Hall who I know sometimes gives out “Tweet & Greet” tickets. Low and behold, he still had some. After a phone call or two, we had my mom coming to keep the kids for Friday afternoon and night and we were off to the promised land.

Our trips down to Aggieland are always a little nostalgic as we don’t do it very often. So here were some of my thoughts from the road:

• I am sad any time I have to pass through Hillsboro and not stop to shop.
• We went through West. I wondered aloud if the Czech Stop is open all night for our long drive home.
• As we got on Hwy 6, hubs and I noticed that it does, in fact, run both ways.
• We always thought the town of Calvert’s high school mascot should be The Speed Trap.

Okay, now for the good stuff.

We got to College Station and had time for a quick snack. Where did we go? None other than the Chicken Oil Company for some cheese fries. It felt like home.

Oh, and I totally got carded and Mike didn’t. He’s such a cradle robber. And I made him tip that sweet girl that took our order. A LOT.

We changed clothes in what might possibly be considered the smallest, most cramped, stuffiest bathroom on the face of the planet and then headed over to Reed Arena for the concert.

We turned around and could also see Kyle Field. *insert sigh of contentment here*

So we got our tickets and met the group for the meet & greet and they led us back stage.

Now, if I had an official “Bucket List” one thing that would probably be on it would be to go back stage at a concert to meet the band. And since I don’t have one, if I ever do make one, I will likely put that on it just so I can mark it off. Just because I’m a little odd that way.

So here’s who we got to meet:

William and Caleb Chapman.

I have been hearing good things about these boys (listen to the old lady in me… boys. HA!). Their performance was really good. With it just being Caleb on acoustic guitar and William playing a little keyboard and drumming a little, their sounds was a little coffee-house-esque. Caleb even took a few minutes to talk about his sweet sister’s passing a few years ago and I pretty much teared up as I totally remember that day. He sang the song that he finished writing out of the grief of that terrible accident.

This is Mike Donehey from Tenth Avenue North. We met all the guys but it all moved so fast that we didn’t end up with a picture.

These guys have an incredible sound. I’m a lover of some good rock music and that’s what they do/ but with some really incredible and deep lyrics. I think we’ll be hearing a lot from them in the years to come.

And finally we got to meet Casting Crowns.

Megan and Melodee. These ladies can sing. In case you didn’t know.

This is Juan. He rocks the guitar and is married to Melodee (above) who also plays violin.

Here we are with the rest of the band: Brian, Mark, Chris and Hector.

I think what I love about this group so much is the fact that they are just a bunch of people serving the Lord. They serve as youth pastors and leaders in their home churches in Atlanta and this seems to be kind of a side gig. And it seems to me that the Lord has truly blessed their ministries as they have been true to the calling He has on their lives.

The concert was incredible. This is Caleb.

Precisely NONE of the rest of my “in concert” pictures came out. I think the bass was vibrating us too much because every single one of them was fuzzy.

Even my husband, who is not all that much of a music person, had a good time. If you’ve ever been to a Crowns concert before, you know that we went to church that night. Because as Mark Hall said, when the songs are over, they’re over. Jesus is the only thing that lasts.

Speaking of when the songs were over, the concert was over WAY later than we expected, so by then we were pretty hungry. We stopped at Wings N More for some heartburn before hitting the road for home at 11:30 pm. It truly did feel like we were back in college at that point.

And in case you were wondering, the Czech Stop is open for business, even at 2 am.

We rolled in at the house at about 3 am at which time we decided that if we never listened to BBC radio at that hour again, it would be too soon. Try it some time. You’ll agree.

We then went through the whole next day of softball games and two crawfish boils on about 3 hours of sleep.

Amen.