Wednesday, January 26, 2011

22° this morning at 4:00 AM.

Yesterday was just my normal routine....nothing special cooked except for biscuits for breakfast.

Kris
influenced me to do a salad for our lunch. It is one of our favorite "meal" type salads. Simply tear up lettuce of choice (I have been using red leaf lettuce this winter..the Romaine is tough as shoe leather!), top with a high quality can of albacore tune (not the dreadful minced catfood)that has been drained, a diced boild egg, onion rings, a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese, salt and pepper. We like Ott's dressing. It is a Missouri product and DH uses it almost exclusively on his salads. We like the red one. This salad with a couple of crackers on the side makes a very filling meal.

When I boil eggs, I always do several. I keep the rest in the frig for other things. Today I think I will make egg salad sandwiches for lunch. They were talking about them on the GW Cooking Forum. I am easily influenced.

I may make a banana cake with cream cheese icing. I haven't done one in ages.

I have been requested to put the recipe here that I used for the buns. It is the same recipe I have been using for our 'daily bread'. I got it from Annie1992 on the Cooking Forum on Gardenweb.
I now call it
Annie's Very Easy Honey/Wheat Bread. It makes two loaves or as many buns as you want it to make. It would make super dinner rolls too....I haven't done that yet.

3 cups AP flour (buy unbleached)
3 cups whole wheat (I use white whole wheat)
2 pkg yeast
1-1/2 teaspoons salt
1 cup milk
1 cup water
1/2 cup honey (or less)or any sweetener you want to use
1/4 cup melted butter
1 egg slightly beaten

Heat milk, water, honey, butter and salt until just warm. Add yeast. Stir to dissolve. Stir in beaten egg. Add flours to make soft dough. Sometimes it will take all the flours...others it won't.

I use my KA mixer by adding about half the flour, Beat for l minute to start the gluten action. Change to the dough hook and slowly add the rest of the flour. Knead with mixer for 6 minutes or turn out onto floured surface and knead by hand for 8-10 minutes until smooth.

Place back in original mixing bowl (I do not clean it, just add some olive oil and brush it around the bowl right over the stuck on stuff....I actually use the ball of dough to smear the oil around. Turn the ball with the oiled smooth side up).
cover top with dampened cloth and let raise for about an hour until it has doubled in size.

Punch down. Let rest a bit, maybe 10 minutes. Divide in half, form into loaves, etc.
or make buns. Place them on greased baking sheets. Let raise again until doubled
Bake at 375° until nice and brown. Bread should test 190° internal temperature when fully cooked.

I won't tell you how to form the buns. I wasn't happy with mine. I need to perfect that....they got too tall and were too small around.

We had bacon cheeseburgers for lunch that day....very tasty.
We haven't used the hot dog buns yet.

Random Pictures

Here is a little taste of summertime. I think these are pipevine swallotails.
Pipevine Swallowtails

7 comments:

  1. That pic of the butterflies on the bright pink phlox was a real punch of color this dreary grey morning. I had to laugh, you were saying I influenced you on salad, while your email spurred me to boil up a half-dozen eggs to add to mine. Great minds.... :-D

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  2. Now you've got me thinking summertime!

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  3. Looks all yummy, G, When is lunch today?
    Love the butterflies, and the splash of color on my screen this morning, WOW!!!
    I wish I had a suggestion for the buns, I could never get them right either, I know I seen a bun pan similar to a muffin pan for buns, and I think it was in one of my last year's Mother Earth News magazines.
    Have a great week, G, oh, I didn't get to the sponge cake, had too many life in the way moments last weekend.
    Maybe this weekend. But not Friday, its supposed to get to *54* degrees WOO HOO!! Then back to winter, WAHHHH!

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  4. ahhh, summertime...can I make it til then? Thanks so much for posting the bun recipe. I'll try it soon. I read recently that you can freeze biscuits after you make them out in a single layer then put in ziplocs and use as you need them. Made up a batch of buttermilk biscuits this morning and we'll try them out this weekend. I love being able to take out only 2 or 3 to cook. This will be a timesaver if they taste good. We are supposed to be 50's on Friday, winter is losing it's hold!

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  5. What a great summertime picture-love butterflies and phlox!

    Thanks for posting your bread recipe-will give it a try. That is also one of our favorite salads and DH uses Otts Poppy Seed dressing on his-I like Ranch.

    Going to be another cold but beautiful January day. Have some errands to run but will wait for it to warm up a bit.

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  6. That bread sounds good. Joe uses the breadmaker that he bought to make breads and has been tweaking the recipes to get what it is that he wants/likes. Funny, Glenda, I just looked at all the photos I have on my tab..it keeps me from getting too "winterized"...and in fact, it rejuvenates me! So, thanks for the Phlox and the butterflies...2 of my favorites!...:)JP

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  7. That salad sounds good. How long do you have to let your eggs sit in the fridge before you can hard boil them, since fresh eggs are hard to peel when hard cooked?

    I had to laugh about your tuna instructions. I have been in the mood for tuna, but keep forgetting to make anything with it.

    Your photo is lovely, and I'm hoping spring gets here soon.

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