Work Day!

I had a bee in my bonnet that I needed to do some "work" around my house, so I attacked my kitchen with a vengeance.






I wanted to make triple batches of Mommy Bread and Stromboli so I won't have to cook as much later in the week when it's hot and I'm tired.




I started out ok. Working on two doughs at once can be a little overwhelming at times, but I have done it before and didn't think I had anything to worry about.







Mommy Bread is a quick(ish) no-knead bread with an airy, chewy texture and stromboli is stuffed pizza dough. Pizza dough is a kneaded , elastic dough with a thick, crusty texture. They take entirely different methods of rising and so I tried to keep them moving along well.







Starting with Mommy Bread- the regular 1 batch recipe calls for



2.5-3 cups flour



1.25 cups water



1 package quick rise yeast



1 tablespoon sugar



.75 teaspoon salt







Start with 1 cup of flour and the yeast mixed together in a large mixing bowl. (Wisk them together for best result).







Then you use what I call a "heat & feed" method. In a sauce pan on the stove, bring your water, sugar and salt to a strong simmer until the solids are dissolved.







You're SUPPOSED to let the water cool before adding it to the flour mixture. You're SUPPOSED to add it in a steady stream while combining the liquid and dry stuff with a mixer. (To all you KitchenAid owners out there, I am officially jealous. I have a dependable but small hand mixer.) You're supposed to beat it for 30 seconds on low and then 3 minutes on high, getting nice and airy with tons of bubbles in the "batter". It's SUPPOSED to look like this:















Then mix in the rest of the flour by hand, making a soft sticky dough. Put it in a lightly greased bowl, cover and let rise for at least an hour. It should look roughly like this:











Punch it down. It will fall- a LOT. Don't worry. You're letting air in. MMM.



Let it rest about 10 minutes before the next step- which is pretty much the end of the bread making.

Spray the bottom of a 1 quart baking dish, cover with corn meal or breadcrumbs, and spread the dough into the dish. Cover it and let it rise for about 30-40 minutes (until double). [You'll see I do this kind of bread a lot. I love a double or even a triple rise dough. It just tastes better to me.]







Once it has risen again, bake in a 400 degree oven for 30-40 minutes. It should look like this:











Notice all of this said it SHOULD look like that? Yeah, well I found out that it could end up looking much differently.







I had an "oops" moment and added WAY too hot water WAY too fast and wound up with this:







It became dumplings later.

My cheddar lasagne stromboli turned out just right- look:












They are HUGE! I made 5, thinking "one per person" (my family plus Squirl, who I feed every now and then). When they came out, I thought "maybe I made too much".

I will not have to cook much this week, though! Woohoo.

That means I can watch more Olympics. I am an Olympics NUT! I cry, yell, cheer, etc. Now I have more time to watch at crazy hours of the day. Yay!

The Red Pan

Every kitchen has one. A special tool, a favorite plate, gadget or doodad that is nothing special, but is TOTALLY SPECIAL. You know, the things given on special occasions, the wedding gifts, the hand-me-downs, the garage sale finds- the hidden treasures of a home.

At my house, it is the Red Pan. It was my grandmother's- andno pretty, matching, designer or fancy item you see on FoodNetwork, in magazines or at the mall compares to it in my opinion.

It's one of those true multi-taskers. It has stood the test of time and put up with some very rigorous abuse ( I have kids and I involve them in a LOT of cooking). It has made lasagne, baked chicken, pork chops, veggie medley, and cake- lots and lots of cake. I use it a lot for "dump cake", and scratch cake, and birthday cake, and I love you cake.

My cakes are always a little uneven because the bottom of the Red Pan is dented and banged from all the putting in, taking out, putting away and dropping that has happened over the years. I happily eat my dented cakes and remember Gramma Dolly.

Today, the Red Pan was acting as a stand-in grill cover/steamer for some chicken I was making. I started on the outdoor grill, but it ran out of gas. I brought it inside to cook on my combination grill/griddle. I was complaining that outside, I can put a lid over the chicken while it cooks to keep the heat in and I wished I had a cover I could use inside.

Then I remembered the Red Pan. Here it is, being a cover for my Grilled Margarita Chicken, which will go over a summer salad:

The Grilled Margarita Chicken is a recipe I stole and reworked for my family- the original was a little spicier than my kids like, and I almost always forget the dressing. So I skip it.

Start with chicken- I use boneless skinless breasts, but this will taste good with pretty much any part or cut. Stick it in a zippy bag (gallon size) and throw in liquid Strawberry Margarita Mix to cover the chicken completely (my guess is 2 cups). Let that sit a couple of hours, or even overnight.

If you're a planner-person, cut up the following in advance:

1 quart strawberries
1 mango, cantelope or half watermelon

add pineapple chunks if desired (it's about 50/50 at my house)

mix in a large bowl and toss lightly with lemon juice to prevent browning. (Just a touch, really)

If you like, you can make the dressing. Wisk together

About 1/4 cup of the margarita mix

2 TB white vinegar

2 TB olive oil

1 clove minced garlic

1 tsp red pepper flakes

1/2 tsp cumin

The dressing is intended to go on both the fruit and the salad, forgoing the lemon. As I said, I usually skip it and I did tonight. Without the dressing, it should look like this:

Grill the chicken up -outside is better, but indoor will do.

The done chicken will be PINK! You'll need to cut it to be sure it is done rather than going by looks. Cut it into chunks or strips for easy eating.

Put some salad (spinach, iceberg, romaine, whatever you like) on a plate like so:

Then toss some of your fruit and chicken pieces on the salad, and side some cucumbers (the free ones I am still swimming in) and you have a yummy dinner!

This is one of my favorite ways to eat light. I usually make up enough chicken for 2 meals so I can have Margarita Chicken PASTA salad the next day.

Yum!

Cool as a cucumber, cold hard Cash

I have an office friend with a garden overflowing with cucumber. She is an awesome lady and she is showering me with the green stuff. We love it at our house (even the kids) and it's so filling it's almost scary.



I discovered yesterday that our dog Cash (after The Man In Black), LOVES cucumber. He did an adorable begging face and then stuck his nose on my lap and breathed his warm fuzzy breath all over me. Of course I melted and he got some.

He was thrilled and is now a super playful and happy dog. However, his scent leaves a lot to be desired. I had NO IDEA how smelly cukes made a doggy smell. If it weren't so hot, he'd be banished outside (and he is a totally spoiled, pampered indoor doggy; he even sleeps on my bed)- he smells THAT bad.



Here's my furry crooner (he sings to us every now and then):

We love this guy! He's very soft and truly loving. Just smelly at the moment. It will pass.

Good, Better, Best- My day Saturday

I had an awesome day Saturday. It started off great and just kept getting better.



I was fairly nervous to start out as the day was a lot of logistical juggling. TallBoy (my son) was supposed to go somewhere, and SweetPea (my daughter) somewhere else, with me showing up at the event with TallBoy after dropping off SweetPea. Then, a I was supposed to be in a Game.



Somewhere in there, I got time to go to a new hobby store in a little town near MY little town (think model railroads, airplanes, cars etc) and it was attached to a cute antique/collectible shop. As I was looking at something on a shelf, I noticed a bin of old metal signs in the upstairs room- and facing me was this:

This is the image from the cover of my Journal from my trip to France 18 years ago. It was just so unexpected and such a nostalgic piece I had to have it. My darling Dude (husband) bought it for me as an anniversary gift (which was "tomorrow" on Saturday), knowing that without my France trip, we would not be married. (We started dating 2 days before my trip- there's a story there, somewhere. Later maybe.)

After this great find, we head to Armored Gopher , where the event TallBoy is involved in is going full swing. We mingle, we chat, we eat some food cooked up by our friend KM and generally enjoy the community that makes AGG so frickin' awesome. (Full disclosure- My Dude is soon to be the owner of the place. But the community is a large part of why we love it and are willing to invest in it.)

So after much hanging out and many loud declarations that I am EVIL due to the fudge I made for the event (a high compliment in our crowd, BTW), it is game time. I am fairly excited about the game as my character, Jak, is finally starting to get things to do and it's starting to turn the corner from Keystone Kops and actually be a WOD game. Saturday it just got AWESOME.

We're set in Chicago. I'm playing Jak - a former Army medic, Thomas is playing a street rat/hobo, and TallBoy is playing a cop. All the action is set in around Jak's North side home. Hobo has recently been attacked by "rat-dogs" and is suffering ill effects. Jak's boss (up to now an NPC run by Squirl) is an old dude running a pharmacy and does some holistic/alternative medicine stuff. The boss is going to help Hobo get better from the "rat-dog" attack. Things start off with Jak getting Hobo in a car (Hobo is a little unstable and cars among many other things scare him) to go to the pharmacy to get help.

I'm aware a new guy is joining our game tonight and I am waiting to see how Squirl gets him in. As Jak knocks on the door at the boss's apartment above the pharmacy, the new guy asks "who is it" and it goes from there. The new guy is playing my boss and things continue on in a kick-butt fashion from there.

The events that transpire in the game are described in fabulous detail. Squirl is making all of us think, work hard at being our characters, and making the world around us very real. We're all faced with things that are way outside our comfort zone and our characters are forced to react. We face the events of the evening head on and keep the action flowing, all the while digging more and more into the meat of our characters.

It's been over 10 years since I last played in a game, and I had almost forgotten why I love it so much until Saturday. I had forgotten how much fun it is to bounce your "self" off of other people, have it evolve and have things fall into place and action really become organic and a community thing. I had not been in a game with this kind of interaction, intensity and thoughtfulness in a LONG time. I had been hesitant to get back into a game because I really didn't want it to be dice rolling. I wanted to THINK about what I was doing and why, and play it off my alter ego and see where it went. Man, did I get that and then some Saturday.

It almost doesn't matter what actually happened- because the experience was so dang cool. I had such a good time leaving the wife/mom behind and truly enjoyed "being" a young single guy battling the forces of weirdness side by side with the "old shopkeeper" all the while trying to keep the Hobo alive and get him freed from the "bugs" that invaded his body.

The evening ended as we had to wrap up and go home. SweetPea was exhausted from her many activities, the Dude was tired as HECK and TallBoy had pretty much sat out this adventure, as his cop had to file incident reports due to firing bullets in the last run. I start to ask the new guy (JohnJ) about his visible tattoos, and that progresses into my next post.