Naan

Oh no.  I'm in trouble.  You're in trouble.  We're in trouble.  I found a quick and easy recipe to make the bread-heads in my family.  It tastes like the flat bread that you get at Noodles & Company (mmmm.... Noodles & Company...).

I used a little spray oil for the first few I made and then switched to butter for the rest of the batch.  The butter was so much tastier so don't even bother using oil when it comes to cooking them.

Here is the dangerous recipe.  You've been warned.  Don't blame me if your butt gets fat from all of the bread you'll be eating once you try out this recipe for yourself.


Ingredients:

1/2 cup warm water
2 tsp. active dry yeast
1 tsp. sugar
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus extra for rolling
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 cup canola oil
1/3 cup plain yogurt
1 large egg
melted butter or oil, for frying

Directions:

In a large bowl, stir together the water, yeast and sugar and let stand for 5 minutes, until foamy.

Stir in the flour, salt, oil, yogurt and egg and stir, then knead until you have a soft, pliable dough. Cover with a tea towel and let rise until doubled in size; about an hour.


My helper:

Divide the dough into  8-10 pieces and on a lightly floured surface, roll out each piece into a thin circle or oval.

Cook each naan in a nice hot skillet (I used my griddle) drizzled with oil (and I mean a little-- you're not frying) until blistered and cooked, flipping as necessary. (When the surface has big blisters and is golden on the bottom, flip it over and cook until golden on the other side.

Enjoy with butter, hummus, honey or any other topping that you find!  My daughter slathered strawberry jam on top of hers.

No Knead Bread

This is the perfect recipe for someone that has little helpers or for someone that has never made a loaf of bread from scratch.  The results aren't anything you will find food critics raving about, but they aren't bad either!  It makes a simple, crusty, white bread that tastes great with a slab of butter, some homemade jelly or jam or especially your favorite soup!  The best part about it is how easy this bread is to make. No need to knead (no knead to knead?)- making it the easiest loaf of bread you will ever make.

My son insisted that we all wear chef hats while baking-- so he made us some (and yes, we threw flour on our faces to look like we've been baking all day!):

Even my husband got a hat!


Adapted from Jim Lahey, Sullivan Street Bakery
Time: About 1½ hours plus 14 to 20 hours’ rising

Ingredients:
3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting
¼ teaspoon instant yeast
1¼ teaspoons salt
Cornmeal or wheat bran as needed

Directions:
1. In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 5/8 cups water, and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.

2. Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.

3. Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal; put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.

4. At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is O.K. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack.
Yield: One 1½-pound loaf.

Rhubarb Bread

Tis the season for one of the yummiest........ ??? things ???.......... (is rhubarb considered a fruit or a vegetable? We are split 50/50 in my house as to what it is) in the world. Rhubarb. I can't harvest mine until next year since it was planted last Spring, but my mom was kind enough to share the rhubarb she inherited with me! I can hardly wait until mine is ready; my kids can have the same memories I have of eating stalks of rhubarb straight from the garden.... dipping the end in a bowlful of white sugar and sucking off the sweetness before biting into the tart stalk (it must be a vegetable.... if it were a fruit, it wouldn't need sugar, now would it?)!

I made this bread today- I didn't have any nuts on hand, but it was delicious despite that fact! Also, 40 minutes wasn't nearly long enough for baking. Mine took closer to a full hour, but I checked it every few minutes starting at 40 minutes.

Ingredients

1 cup milk
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
2/3 cup vegetable oil
1 egg
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 cups chopped rhubarb
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon butter, melted

Directions

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Lightly grease two 9x5 inch loaf pans.

In a small bowl, stir together milk, lemon juice and vanilla; let stand for 10 minutes.

In a large bowl, mix together 1 1/2 cups brown sugar, oil and egg. Combine the flour, salt and baking soda, stir into sugar mixture alternately with the milk mixture just until combined. Fold in rhubarb and nuts.

Pour batter into prepared loaf pans.

In a small bowl, combine 1/4 cup brown sugar, cinnamon and butter. Sprinkle this mixture over the unbaked loaves.

Bake in preheated oven for 40 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of a loaf comes out clean.

Beer Bread

Who needs to attend a Tastefully Simple home party and spend $6 on a box mix of beer bread when you can make it yourself at home-- with staple ingredients? It's a favorite around here and can be made in the same amount of time that the processed box mix crap can be made.

Ingredients:
3 cups of all purpose flour
1/3 cup of sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tablespoon baking powder
12 oz of beer (or pop like 7-Up, Sprite, Ginger Ale)
2 tbsp butter, melted

Directions:
Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl. Gently pour in the beer and mix until just blended. Batter will be thick.

Pour into a greased loaf pan and pour melted butter over the top of bread batter. Bake at 375° for 45 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.

Remove from pan and let cool on a baking rack.
Cut in cubes and serve with your favorite dip or just eat it by the slice!

Cinnamon Sour Cream Streusel Loaf

I love breads. I could easily make a loaf of just about any kind of bread and eat the entire thing by myself. This recipe is no exception. (Jeff-- fair warning... the topping of this bread is a close second to the topping of the Banana Crumb Muffins!)

Ingredients:




1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Directions:

Beat butter at medium speed of an electric mixer until creamy; gradually add 1 cup sugar, beating well. Add egg, beating until blended.

Combine flour, baking powder, and salt; add to batter mixture alternately with sour cream, beginning and ending with flour mixture. Beat at low speed just until blended. Stir in vanilla.

Combine pecans and remaining three ingredients. Pour half of batter into a greased and floured 8×4 inch pan (or 3 mini loaf pans); (make sure to spread batter into an even layer before sprinkling on the streusel)sprinkle with half of pecan mixture. Pour remaining batter into pan; top with remaining pecan mixture, pressing down lightly.

Bake at 350 for one hour for 8×4 pans, approximately 35-40 minutes for mini loaves, or until toothpick comes out with a few moist crumbs attached. Cool in pan on wire rack 10 minutes, remove from pan, cool completely.

If streusel gets too dark, tent pan with foil. (I tented mine when there was about 15 minutes remaining). I also only baked mine 55 minutes total.

Beer Bread

This can be made with any carbonated beverage instead of beer, but I wouldn't recommend it. It just doesn't have the same yummy taste (and I'm not much of a beer drinker, but I love this bread!). I've made it both with Sprite and Coke and it just didn't compare. Also, this is just as tasty as the box mix that you can buy from Tastefully Simple-- just much more cost effective!






Ingredients:



3 cups of all purpose flour
1/3 cup of sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tablespoon baking powder
12 oz of beer (or pop)
2 tbsp butter, melted

Directions:

Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl. Gently pour in the beer and mix until just blended. Batter will be thick.

Pour into a greased bread pan and pour melted butter over the top of bread batter. Bake at 375° for 45 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.

Remove from pan and let cool on a baking rack.

Semi-Homemade Doughnuts

These are the easiest doughnuts you will ever make! All it takes is some refrigerated biscuit dough and some cinnamon-sugar. You can make them in a pan of hot oil on your stove top (at least 2 inches of oil) but I usually use our deep fryer. If you don't have a small circle cutter, improvise! I used a medicine cup from children's medicine!

Ingredients:



Refrigerated biscuit dough
Cinnamon sugar (or powdered sugar or even frosting)
Cooking oil (I usually just use Crisco when I deep fry)

What you do:

1. Open up the biscuit tube and spread out the biscuits.

2. Use a circle cutter to cut a circle out of the center of each biscuit.



3. Drop biscuits in hot oil. They poof up a bit, so just do a few at a time.

4. Don't go anywhere... these cook fast.

5. After a minute or two, flip the doughnut using a fork.



6. Allow the other side to cook for about a minute or until golden brown.



7. Remove from oil, quickly shake off any access oil and immediately roll doughnut in cinnamon sugar.



8. Try not to eat them all in one sitting. :)

Perfectly Easy Dinner Rolls

This icebox dough requires no kneading and can be made up to 4 days ahead. Just take it out of the refrigerator, let rise and bake.

Ingredients:



1 cup warm water (105°F to 115°F)
2 packages active dry yeast
1/2 cup butter, melted
1/2 cup sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp salt
4-4 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
Additional melted butter (optional)

Directions:

Combine the warm water and yeast in a large bowl. Let the mixture stand until yeast is foamy, about 5 minutes.

Stir in butter, sugar, eggs and salt. Beat in flour, 1 cup at a time, until dough is too stiff to mix (some flour may not be needed). Cover and refrigerate 2 hours or up to 4 days.



Grease a 9x13 baking pan. Turn the chilled dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Divide dough into 24 equal-sized pieces.



Roll each piece into a smooth round ball; place balls in even rows in the prepared pan.



Cover and let dough balls rise until doubled in volume, about one hour.

Preheat oven to 375°F. Bake until rolls are golden brown, 15-20 minutes. Brush warm rolls with melted butter, if desired. Break rolls apart to serve.

Mummy Dogs

I saw this cute idea on the cover of a recipe magazine while standing in a checkout lane at the store the other day. I didn't buy the book, but figured it wouldn't be too hard to create these without a recipe. Another cute Halloween food idea to feed your little ghosts and goblins before sending them out the door for trick-or-treating.



Ingredients:



Hot dogs
Crescent roll dough
Mustard (or ketchup)

What you do:

1. Unroll the crescent dough and don't break it apart. Leave it as one large rectangle and press the diagonal seams together a bit.

2. Use a pizza cutter or a knife to cut strips in the rectangle of crescent dough.

(I ended up cutting all of it, not just half as the picture shows)


3. Roll the strips (either a full length strip or a half strip (since it's perforated already) )like you would to make a snake out of playdough. Stretch the dough to be about 2 times it's length.

4. Wrap the rolled strip around a hotdog in a bandage fashion. I used two or three "half" strips for each mummy.



5. Place your mummies on a baking sheet and bake at 375°F for about 13 minutes (give or take) or until golden brown.



6. Use mustard or ketchup to dot some eyes on your mummies before serving.

Salty Bones Bread Sticks

Just in time for Halloween! Wouldn't these Salty Bone Bread Sticks make the perfect accompaniment to your Halloween dinner? This recipe is from Family Fun Magazine. They were so simple to make and I can see my kiddies wanting these more than just at Halloween time!

Ingredients:



Refrigerated bread stick dough
Course salt

Directions:

1. Unroll a tube of refrigerated bread stick dough and separate the rectangular pieces.

2. Working with one piece at a time, stretch the dough to lengthen it a bit and then use kitchen scissors or a knife to cut a 11/2-inch slit in the center of each end.

3. Roll or shape the resulting four flaps of dough into knobs that look like the ends of a bone.



4. Place the dough bones on an ungreased baking sheet, spacing them a few inches apart, and sprinkle on a little coarse salt.



5. Bake the bones until they are light golden brown, about 12 minutes.

Pumpkin Bread

This recipe was recommended by my friend Jenn. She said it was the only one she will ever make. When I looked over the recipe, I about died when I saw it called for 3 cups of sugar! 3 cups? Wow! But then I realized the recipe makes 3 loaves of bread, so in actuality, each loaf has only 1 cup of sugar in it. And if I get 16 slices of bread from one loaf, each slice only has about a tablespoon of sugar in it. So now it doesn't sound so bad, does it?

Ingredients:

1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin puree
4 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
2/3 cup water
3 cups white sugar
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour three 7x3 inch loaf pans.

In a large bowl, mix together pumpkin puree, eggs, oil, water and sugar until well blended.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and ginger.

Stir the dry ingredients into the pumpkin mixture until just blended. Pour into the prepared pans.

Bake for about 50 minutes in the preheated oven. Loaves are done when toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Elephant Ears

Yum. If you like sugar and if you like pastries... this is your thing. These really do taste just like Elephant Ears you would get at a bakery, although they are more like baby elephant ears since they are much smaller. I think there is an entire jungle of earless elephants somewhere out there from what I've eaten tonight alone.... they are so good and dangerously easy.

What you need:



Puff pastry
Granulated sugar
Parchment paper

What you do:


1. Sprinkle about 1/4 cup of sugar over your workstation. Roll out the puff pastry to about 10X12 inches. Sprinkle another 1/4 cup of sugar (and spices if using) over the dough.





2. Roll up the left vertical side inward, stopping in the middle of the dough. Roll up the right side of the dough. The two rolls should be meeting at the middle and touching. Press the two sides together gently and let the dough chill in the fridge for at least half an hour. Repeat with any more puff pastry you may have.



3. Starting at one end, cut off pieces of the log, in slices about 1/2 inch in thickness. Lightly sprinkle sugar onto each side. Pinch and press the sides of the two rolls together to ensure that they don't unroll during baking. Place on large parchment lined baking sheets, or a baking sheet lined with a Silpat. They will increase size dramatically, so leave plenty of room between each cookie and only bake a dozen at a time.



4. Set the tray in the middle of the oven. Bake at 400° for about 10-15 minutes or until the sugar has caramelized. Allow them to cool on a rack for 10 minutes. Serve and enjoy.

Best Ever Banana Bread

This is another recipe from my dear friend Gretchen. She shared this recipe a couple of years ago and I've never made any other recipe since. Sometimes I use a bundt pan to make it and sometimes I use 2 loaf pans. It just depends on how I'm feeling on that particular day.




INGREDIENTS:

1 cup mashed bananas (I used 3 medium bananas)
1 cup sour cream
1/4 cup butter
1 1/3 cups white sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt


DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour one 9x13 inch pan, or two 7x3 inch loaf pans*.

Combine banana and sour cream. Set aside.

In a large bowl, cream together the margarine and sugar until smooth. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the vanilla and banana mixture. Combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt; stir into the banana mixture.

Spread the batter evenly into the prepared pan or pans.

Bake for 50 minutes in the preheated oven, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the bread comes out clean.

*I used a bundt pan, and greased it, then dusted with cinnamon and sugar. It made the crust DIVINE.

Strawberry Bread

This is a new recipe that I had never tried. It is really sweet for a bread, but would be really good slathered with some plain cream cheese. Next time, I'm going to make it with blueberry preserves and will put a little strudel topping on it before baking.

1 cup butter, softened

1 1/2 cups sugar

1/4 teaspoon lemon extract

1 teaspoon vanilla

4 eggs

3 cups flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cream of tartar

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 cup strawberry preserves

1/2 cup sour cream

1 cup chopped nuts (opt)


Preheat oven to 350°. Grease and flour two bread pans.

Cream butter, sugar, and extracts; add eggs one at a time and beat well after each addition.

Sift dry ingredients together.

Combine strawberry preserves and sour cream together and add to creamed mixture alternating with flour mixture.

Add pecans or nuts if desired.

Place in prepared pans and bake at 350° for 50-55 minutes.

This bread freezes well. Wrap several times in saran wrap and then in freezer bags. You can also use 6 canning wide mouth pint jars and bake at 350 for about 40 minutes and seal with lids while hot.