Yogurt Harissa Marinated Chicken and Veg

 So once I made that lovely pot of harissa I wanted to find ways to use it, so I found a way to add it to one of my very favorite dishes roasted veg and chicken. I ate masses of roasted veg and chicken the entire time I was losing weight, though usually I did more of a southwest flavor. The thing I love about this is that you can have a lovely large portion of veggies with a little protein and the whole thing can be eaten in a whole bunch of ways over the course of the week.

Ingredients:

1 giant eggplant
3 medium/small zucchini
1 medium yellow onion
2 bunches of asparagus
1 1/2 cups butternut squash
8 oz baby bella mushrooms
2 large chicken breasts
2 small chicken thighs, skin and bone removed.

Marinade 

2 cups greek yogurt
3 tablespoons harrisa
lemon zest and lemon juice
1 cup cilantro chopped
1 tsp ras al haunot
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp coriander ground
salt and pepper




This is a pretty basic recipe. Mix the harissa with the yogurt, spices, and lemon. Chop the chicken and veggies and toss them all in the yogurt marinade. I did do the chicken earlier than the veggies and did it separately because I didn't want the veggies to break down or spend as much time with the chicken juices. I stuck them all in the fridge for a couple of hours until I was ready to eat.





I put all the veggies on sheet pans lined with foil and stuck them in a 395 degree oven. I cooked them for 10 minutes and then added the chicken and asparagus I had reserved (since it doesn't need as long to cook), and cooked for another 20 minutes, or until the chicken looked done.

The Verdict: This simple dish has so much flavor from the harrisa, the lemon, and all the spices--the chicken is incredibly tender and moist, and the veggies are good cold or hot. I served it with a wedge of my crusty 4 grain bread, and have been eating it all week. I made enough for lunches and dinners, and have yet to get sick of the incredible flavors and textures. The eggplant is really flavorful, and the squashes are tender, and it is just one of those easy dishes that tastes so much better than the amount of effort it takes to prepare--plus it is super healthy!

Bread Attempt #2

So while contemplating my first bread attempt, with its long and relatively specific and complicated directions, I pulled another book (this one still in the library's collection) called Artisan Breads Every Day to compare the techniques. This is another long process with low kneading requirements. I don't have a stand mixer and my sister's is broken, so I wanted to give this a try to see how it compares. Partially because I wanted to make a whole wheat bread, and this book had one I had all the ingredients for in my house (I didn't have to borrow any ingredients from my sister, but I did anyways. It is good that she doesn't read this blog!)


This makes two loaves, but I'm already making another loaf, so I divided it in half. Hopefully that doesn't screw up the bread.

Ingredients:
14 oz whole wheat flour
.25 oz kosher salt
3/4 tbs agave nectar (thanks Emily!)
1/2 tbs yeast
11 oz lukewarm water
1 tbs vegetable oil


The dry ingredients are added together--including the sugar, but not the yeast (I may have done that at first and had to redo this!), and mixed to combine. The yeast is combined with the lukewarm water and the agave nectar--stirred until they are combined and the yeast has dissolved. Then the oil is added and whisked. The wet mixture is then added to the dry ingredients until the flour is all moistened.



At this point the dough is set aside for the flour to fully absorb the moisture, 5 minutes--I may have lost track of time, but came back and got on. I don't have a stand mixer, but I have a hand one with a dough hook, so I employed it for this next step. The dough is supposed to be stirred for 4 minutes at medium low speed increasing to medium high for the last 30 seconds--my dough was pretty dry so I added two tablespoons of water one at a time while I stirred. This was pretty hard for me--even with the mixer it was a lot of work.

After the dough was stirred enough I dumped it on a lightly floured surface and begun the fold and stretch part. Basically you pull from the bottom of the ball towards yourself and then wrap around to the other side, do that from each side, wrapping it. Then it goes into an oiled bowl and sits for 10 minutes at room temperature and then the same dump, pull, stretch, and wrap. This is repeated 3 additional times with 10 minutes in between.


After the final time, it goes into an oiled bowl, is covered well with plastic wrap, and goes into the fridge at least overnight, but for as much as 4 days. It does a lot of raising in the fridge--not only was it visibly bigger, but big bubbles appeared on the top. I pulled it out around 1 pm, after about 20 or so hours later.

Normally it would be divided into two loaves, but I'd split the recipe in half. So I dumped it on a floured surface and formed a loaf by pulling the edges towards the center. The book had some nice illustrations to demonstrate how to do this. I'm not sure I did it right but it is supposed to be a homestyle hearth loaf, not a fancy shaped loaf. I placed it on a sheet of parchment paper with cornmeal on bottom on top of an inverted sheet pan. It is covered with an oiled plastic sheet and let rise for about 3 hours until it had doubled or more. I kind of lost track of time, so I'm not sure how long it was, but you can see how much bigger it is.
The oven requires a specific set up for this type of bread--different from the last one, but a similar principle. The idea is to create a heated place to put the bread, rather than just put the pan in a preheated oven. So this is trying to recreate your stone hearth of yore or brick oven. I didn't have any kind of pizza stone, tile, or stone anything. But my sister had this heavy duty stoneware casserole that I borrowed--I'm dog sitting and she told me to make myself at home so I did. It goes into a 500 degree oven, along with a sheet pan. The two racks are moved to the bottom two slots, and pre-heat for at least 40 minutes. They need to be really hot to create the right environment to cook the bread.

About 15 minutes before it needs to cook, I took off the plastic and cut two parallel cuts in the bread dough and let it relax.  Then it is transferred into the prepared oven. This was pretty tricky with the casserole as opposed to a pizza stone or other flat stone. So the loaf got distorted, and since it was so hot it really started to bake right away. I poured a cup of very hot water into the sheet pan below, and reduced the oven's temperature to 425 and cooked for 15 minutes and then turned the pan and cooked for another 15 minutes. It had browned very well so I pulled it out and let it rest for 15 minutes before tearing into it.

The Verdict: This is a nice soft intensely wheaty bread. The wheat is perhaps a little bitter--it could use more agave or honey or sugar to balance out the amount of wheat. That said, it has a really nice crumb, with a lovely texture. I'm actually surprised at how soft and moist it is considering it isn't enriched. The crust isn't too hard, but goes well with the soft interior. I will try this again, increasing the sugar and maybe cutting the whole wheat with some white flour to moderate the taste--or adding some flavor counterpoint.

Kneadlessly Simple--my first loaf of bread

I'll admit to being a breadlover--while I don't pair every main course with a carb, I just love a good bread, and so does my family. We used to joke that we could eat our fill out of the bread bowl at family dinners and not even need an entree. But I can't say that we ate a lot of homemade bread growing up--besides the good old bread machine. I have to say I didn't love the texture of the crust on it, though it never stopped me from eating it. So in my quest to learn to cook, baking bread seemed like a skill I would naturally love to develop. I even had a book in my collection that made it sound easy, so I'm giving it a try.

The book I'm baking from is called Kneadlessly Simple and promises Fabulous, Fuss-Free, no-knead breads. While it says simple and easy, this is no quick recipe where you toss a few things together and have results right away. Rather it is putting things together and letting time do its business. Lots of hurry up and wait.

Ingredients:
3 cups unbleached bread flour
1/2 c yellow cornmeal, plus some for garnish
1/2 c old-fashioned rolled oats
1/2 c whole wheat bread flour (the original called for rye, which I didn't have)
1 tbs granulated sugar
2 tsp salt
3/4 tsp fast rising yeast
2 c ice water
cooking spray

Baking like this is a lot of science, so I broke out the scale to get exact measurements--I borrowed the bread flour from my sister--if she was not out of town I'd get her to try some of the bread. Mix dry ingredients thoroughly--including the sugar and yeast--and then add the cold water. I added it slowly to try and get the dry ingredients moistened slowly, since the flour seemed to absorb as much water as it could and was kind of difficult to get all of the flour mixture moistened. The dough was, as the recipe indicated, quite stiff. The dough is sprayed with the cooking oil, covered, and stuck in the fridge for 3 to 10 hours.

The book says two rises--but there are really three in the book. First is when it rises in the fridge--which it does quite a bit, and then in a cool place for 12-18 hours, and then a regular raise in a warm place. These three rises are supposed to substitute for kneading, with the flavor developing as well. The idea is that while this takes more than 24 hours to make, most of it can be done while you sleep or at work.


Anyway, around 8 at night, I pulled the dough out of the fridge and set it on the counter top to raise. I lowered the temp in the house to a cool 66 degrees, so the bread would have a nice slow time rising. I covered it with plastic wrap and sprayed the top with oil.





         In the morning the dough had doubled, and you could see an incredible array of bubbles and air pockets along the side of the bowl. I liked being able to see the dough in the clear bowl--science in action! I let it work for a few more hours, not starting the second rise until after my water aerobics.

So with an oiled rubber spatula I lifted from the corners and folded it into the center to deflate it and begin the second raise. I turned the heat back up and let that rise for two and a half hours. About twenty minutes before it was to go into the oven, I put my dutch oven in the oven and preheated both to 450. The book suggests dropping water in to make sure it is hot enough--it got sizzling!

The dough is dumped into the screaming hot pan--which is easier said than done. It turned out somewhat inelegantly in the pan and it was so hot it started cooking right away and couldn't be shifted. I used a pair of scissors to cut a circle in the top of the bread, sprinkled the top with water, and sprinkled it with cornmeal.

I lowered the temperature of the oven to 425, and the bread goes into the oven with the lid on for 50 minutes. During that time the whole house begun smelling deliciously of baking bread. At 50 minutes cooking, the lid comes off and it bakes for another 15 minutes, or until the thermometer reads between 210-212. I have to say mine didn't get quite that high, even though I let it bake the 15 minutes and then the extra 5 minutes it recommended. The top was getting really brown, and I was worried about burning it. I pulled it out and let it sit in the pot for a good 15 minutes, and then tore into it and had a big chunk with my beef and vegetable tagine.

The Verdict: This is a crusty bread with a surprisingly moist interior. I expected such a lean bread to be drier, but it is deliciously tender, with a really crunchy crust. There is a good amount of flavor developed here from the long rising and the four grains. I have to admit I want to eat this whole loaf in one sitting--but it is so good warm and delicious out of the oven. I am pretty proud of my very first loaf of bread--it is a big step above being just edible!

Death by Chocolate Cupcakes

So this weekend I piled all the cookbooks on the ground that I have yet to bake from and picked one off the top. I couldn't believe I've yet to make one from the Hungry Girl cookbook. I love her recipes--though I must admit that lately I've been moving away from using as many pre-packaged foods and mixes. I figure when you are trying to learn to cook you need to practice the long ways and not the shortcuts. That said, this was a pretty awesome shortcut to delicious and low calorie yumminess!

I have been craving chocolate since I finished off the last of my chewy chocolate cookies--I loved the carrot cake, but it had no chocolate in it! So this recipe hit the spot. I even had half a cake mix sitting on the shelf waiting to be used!

Ingredients:
2 cups moist style chocolate cake mix
2 diet chocolate hot chocolate mix packets
1/2 cup egg substitute
2 tbs semi-sweet mini chocolate chips
1 tbs stevia baking mix
1/8 tsp salt

So this is a pretty simple cake--but I swear I was all butterfingers the whole time, so it didn't turn out perfect. Step one is to boil about a cup and a half of water (12 oz) and pour that over the chocolate chips and cocoa mix. That is stirred until the chocolate is melted and dissolved, then that is put in the freezer. Sadly at that point I tripped and spilled part of it all over the wall and fridge. Yeah, so I didn't pour all of it everywhere, just about a half cup. So I added some more drink mix, more chocolate, and more boiling water and added it to the mix. The proportions might have been a little off--and the calorie count went up because I added more chocolate. Still yum!

Anyways, chocolate in the freezer. I headed over to play with my sister's dog I'm dogsitting. I borrowed a handful of hazelnuts from her (she told me to make myself at home!), and after my pups and her dog were tired of the rain, I headed back. The cake mix, salt, and sugar substitute were whisked together. I toasted the hazelnuts and chopped them finely and tossed them in the dry ingredients.

By this time the cocoa had cooled and could be added with the egg substitute to the dry ingredients. This was whisked with my beater for at least 2 minutes. The recipe warns this is a very thin batter, and they were not lying. It was VERY thin---probably because I messed up the proportions after I spilled the cocoa. I poured it into a cupcake tin with cupcake liners. It was supposed to make 12, but I had enough batter for 14.






They go into a 350 degree oven for 15-18 minutes. The directions warn they will be glossy on top when done--and they will--but they are so runny you have to watch to make sure they are set. I saw them deflate a little when I opened the oven to check on them at 15 minutes. They came out puffy and do deflate a little bit as they cool.




The Verdict: This is an incredible moist drenched cake--with a sodden texture and a deep chocolate taste. I think the hazelnuts are really good because they offer a much needed contrast to the intense chocolately moistness. I really enjoyed this nice and warm out of the oven, and I suspect it would be incredible topped with some vanilla ice cream or even some caramel or peanut butter. This is definitely one for chocolate lovers and those looking for a quick and relatively healthy treat.

Sunshine Salad

Pickle and Pineapple Gelatin from Mid-Century Menu

So I have a confession, I really love reading about vintage recipes, especially blogs where people go back and make the recipes again in all their disgusting glory. But I'm a coward. I don't want to make something that I don't want to eat--and I just don't want to eat something like pickles in my jello. I do like jello quite a bit--I even have a really awesome retro jello cookbook, with spinners to select the perfect jello to go with each meal. But almost all of them call for fruit cocktail or ketchup, neither of which I have. So today I just decided to be inspired by the retro recipes and make something new. Next time I'll make a special trip and get the ingredients and try one of the dishes in my cookbook, I promise to work up the courage. I may not eat it all, though, can't promise that!

So here's my modernized sunshine jello salad--to accompany my beef tagine.

Ingredients:
1 sml pkg sugar free lime gelatin
1 sml pkg sugar free lemon jello
half a pkg flavorless gelatin
1/2+ cup shredded pineapple
1/2+ cup blueberries
1/2+ cup fresh mango chopped
extra lime and lemon zest



So I have been collecting these lovely molds at the thrift store for the last little while--they are usually under a dollar and are fun and different. This one I like because it is not too big and has a fun and unspecific shape (not a lobster or heart). So this is pretty simple--mix up the lime jello, using about a half cup less water and add a little of the unflavored gelatin (it helps it hold its shape). That goes into the fridge to start to set.

Once that layer has started to solidify add the mango, then mix up the lemon layer--I used some of the pineapple juice in place of some of the water and let it start to thicken and add the pineapple and pour on top of the lime layer. That goes in the fridge to chill--once it has started to set I added some blueberries.

I added a little too much extra gelatin and it set up a lot quicker than I anticipated, so I didn't get the mango in before it had started to set. But on the plus side it took barely 2 hours from start to finish to completely set enough to be unmolded. That is really one of the best parts of making a jello mold--seeing it pop out all jiggly and pretty. To loosen from the mold I dip the outside in a bowl filled with warm water and run a knife gently around the edge. Sloshing it back and forth and then inverting onto a plate and here it goes!



The Verdict: If you like jello and fruit you will like this, because that is basically what it is. I topped mine with some whipped cream from a can and pretended I was living it up in 1965. It could use some more fruit, but I ate a lot of the mango before it made it to the salad.  It was very pretty, and I ate it all up really quickly. Big yum!