Wheat Oat Soda Bread

During my 3rd trip to Ireland, and after eating all that wonderful “brown bread” I went hunting for a cookbook with a traditional recipe, since waiting for a 4th trip to eat that bread was not practical. Kylemore Abbey had such a book and it came home with me. I made the recipe, following it exactly. Wanting a slightly sweeter and less stiff dough, I made a few changes and came up with this recipe. It’s just as good without the oat flour, but since I only had 3 cups of whole wheat flour left, grinding oatmeal in a spice grinder gave me what is referred to in this recipe as oat flour. I’ve used as much as 1/4 cup of molasses and that worked too.

Ingredients:

3C whole wheat flour 2C unbleached white flour 1C oat flour 1C wheat bran 1/2C steel cut oats 3T wheat germ 2t baking soda 1t salt 2T dark molasses 1qt buttermilk 1 extra large egg

Directions:

After gathering together all the dry ingredients, measure them out and place into a large bowl. Mix the dry ingredients together and then gather the wet ingredients.

 

Place part of the buttermilk into a measuring cup or bowl, then add the molasses and egg. Mix thoroughly with a whisk, set aside and make a well in the center of the dry ingredients so you can mix wet and dry together.

Pour the buttermilk mixture into the well and add any of the leftover buttermilk from the quart. The batter can be sticky enough to warrant using more flour, so reserving some of that buttermilk until needed might save some time. Mix the ingredients together until all the dry ingredients have been blended into a moist dough. Separate the dough in half.

     

Place on half of the dough on a floured board for kneading and knead long enough to form a  smooth loaf. Knead the 2nd half into another loaf and place both on a greased baking sheet. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

         

In this instance I greased the baking sheet and the loaves with olive oil. Bake at 400 degrees for 45 minutes, then remove from the oven and let cool on a drying rack. I use cake racks, since I have them and they do the job of allowing the bottoms to cool and not steam on the hot pan.                      When cooled, slice the bread loaf, spread with butter and jam or marmalade and eat. This photo shows my plum, pineapple and orange marmalade, which obscures the bread, but tastes very good.

Mushroom Turnovers

After one more recipe using Burrata and prosciutto, I'm hanging up my turnover hat for awhile. I love the ease of making them. They make tasty little starters, or a big appetizer, but my well is running dry for new ideas at the moment, and I would in fact, like to repeat a few before making something new. This recipe is for the first turnover I ever made; it was an appetizer for vegetarian friends.

Ingredients:

2C sliced mushrooms

1 large minced shallot

1T extra virgin olive oil

salt to taste

1/4t dried thyme

1package puff pastry squares

Directions:
First of all, thaw the puff pastry, then preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

After the mushrooms have been sliced, give them a coarse chop. In a pan over medium heat, add the olive oil and saute the minced shallots until they are translucent. Crush the thyme and add it to the pan. Stir it with the shallots and saute until you smell the fragrance of the thyme. Now's the time to add the chopped mushrooms to the pan and saute them until they start releasing their liquid. Adding salt at this time will help in that process. Feel free to add a bit more olive oil if they start sticking to the pan before the liquid is released. Remove the mushrooms and set aside.

Place the puff pastry squares on a large, nonstick baking sheet. Add as much filling as you can toward the center of each pastry square, but allow at least a one inch border all around so you can seal the turnover properly.

Fold two opposite corners of the pastry together, stretching it slightly over the filling and pinch all the edges to seal the turnover. Fold over all the edges by half an inch and crimp the edges. Use fork tines to press the edges together if you can't get the hang of crimping. Dock the top for venting steam (pierce with a fork in quick jabs).

Bake the turnovers until they are puffed and turning a golden brown. sometimes I lower the oven to 350 degrees after the first 5 minutes, to avoid burning the dough. Again, you can see what happens when the edges are not fully sealed. This can be avoided if you make certain the all the edges are dry and the margins are a full inch or more wide.

Cheese and Sausage Turnovers

Yes, I've made turnovers before. My motto is to take a good idea and run with it, so since the turnovers have been successful I'll be making more of them with different fillings. How can I resist with frozen puff pastry so cheap and so available. A turnover is a useful tool for using up leftovers. I can't wait for Thanksgiving so I can try one with turkey, stuffing and cranberry sauce!


Ingredients:
1/2 red onion
3 Italian sausages
1T olive oil
2/3C grated Chipotle Jack cheese
6 square cut frozen puff pastry

Directions: Before starting on the filling, defrost the puff pastry.

Finely mince the onions and saute them in the olive oil over a medium heat. After they have become translucent, add the sausage after you have removed the casings. Your aim is to cook and break down the sausage as much as possible into a fine texture, so you won't have lumpy turnovers with lots of air pockets. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and place one of the racks in the middle of the oven for more even heating.

When the sausage is fully cooked remove it from the pan and place it in a bowl to cool down. Set aside, then grate the cheese with a coarse grater until you have 2/3 cup. Add the cheese to the cooled sausage and stir. Place the squares of pastry dough on a non stick cookie sheet, or a regular sheet pan covered with parchment paper and start filling the squares by piling the sausage mixture in the center with 1 1/2" margins all around. Fold opposite corners together and press firmly around all edges. You may have to stretch the dough to accommodate the amount of filling as you pass it over the top of the filling.
After all edges are secure, fold them inward by 1/2" and start crimping the edges. I can't explain it, you'll just have to see it, or take the easy way out and just press fork tines along the edges to make sure the turnover edges are sealed. Dock the top of each turnover with fork tines, so steam can be released.
This photo is evidence that my edges were not as fully sealed as they should have been. "Do as I say, not as I do."

Blackberry Apricot Napoleon

Yes, you caught me. I've done this recipe before, but in fairness it was made with a commercial red currant jam and this is made with homemade apricot preserves. Besides, how many original recipes can a girl come up with on short notice?


Ingredients:
frozen puff pastry
apricot preserves
extra heavy whipping cream
blackberries

Directions:

Many commercially made packages of frozen puff pastry com in 6" X 6" squares, so cut each in half , place on a baking sheet and bake according to package directions. After they are halfway baked, before they turn color but after they have puffed up, lay a 2nd sheet pan on top of them to keep the pastry flattened. Remove the sheet pan after a few minutes and allow the pastry to brown. Cool down the pastry and plate the first layer, then add a layer of preserves.

Add a layer of berries, then whip the cream and use vanilla if you choose, but no sugar. I don't bother with either for this dessert. Top the fresh berries with a generous amount of the whipped cream and add another layer of pastry, preserves and berries.

Finally you need to top the berries with more cream, another layer of pastry and more apricot preserves. But for this final layer, place the cream on the preserves and make the berries your final layer.

Pesto Pinwheels

You discover a box of frozen puff pastry in your freezer that needs to be used (the exact reason not having been established) and dessert is already planned, what do you do? Make a quick appetizer with pesto. Luckily when I make pesto from scratch, I most often freeze a few jars with the leftovers so it is most always available. A commercial brand of pesto would not be as flavorful.

Ingredients:
fresh homemade basil pesto
grated Romano cheese
puff pastry

Directions:

Thaw the puff pastry and set your oven to 375 degrees. Spread the pesto over the pastry, leaving a small border so you can seal the pastry to itself, and so the pesto will not fall out of the roll you are about to make. Add a generous amount of grated Romano cheese (twice what is in the photo) and tightly roll the pastry into a tube, sealing the end by pinching the end onto the roll. Slice the pastry roll into pieces that are a little less than an inch wide and place each disk on its side upon a baking sheet that has been layered with parchment paper (or buttered). Bake until puffed and lightly browned.

The Apricot Almond "Darty"

Many new recipes are developed by adapting a tried and true recipe into something better by using different ingredients. That is how this one was created. I used Nana's walnut date bar as a starting point and switched out the dates and walnuts for toasted almonds and apricots.
Ingredients:

4 eggs
2C sugar
1 1/2C flour
1t baking powder
1/2t salt
1T almond extract
1C chopped dried Turkish apricots
1C chopped dried Blenheim apricots
2C slivered toasted almonds

Directions:

Mix together the flour, baking powder and salt, then set aside. Beat eggs and gradually add in the sugar, then the almond extract, until you have a light fluffy mixture. Add in the apricots, mixing slowly. Continue mixing while adding small amounts of the flour mixture until it is all completely incorporated.

Toast the almonds on a sheet pan in the oven at 400 degrees fro about 5 minutes, let cool and add them into the batter by hand, so as not to break them into smaller pieces. Preheat your oven to 325 degrees.

Prepare a jellyroll pan by placing a liner of parchment paper into it, then place your batter down the middle of the pan and spread it evenly to all 4 corners of the pan. This is a very sticky batter, so you'll need to put some muscle into it! Grease another sheet of parchment paper with butter and place it on top of the batter before placing it into the oven. I can then smooth and even out the batter by running my hands over the top sheet of parchment paper. This keeps the top from becoming hard, so it can hold the powdered sugar better. Bake the batter for 30 minutes and test to see if it is done by putting a toothpick into the center. If it comes out wet you need to cook it longer. I often turn up the heat to 350 degrees if it is not cooked at that point and bake another 10 minutes. After you take the sheet pan out of the oven, remove the top layer of parchment paper and let the cookies cool a bit before cutting them into bars. Cut them into squares. While still warm, roll them in powdered sugar.

This becomes a very chewy and rich cookie that I used, combined with a lavender shortbread for a friend's wedding. After placing the cookie in the center of a piece of cellophane, I lowered it into a 2 1/4" X 2 1/4" favor box, placed the chocolate covered shortbread on top, then wrapped with netting and ribbon that worked with the bride's color scheme. The reason these cookies came about at all was that the shortbread looked small for the box. Adding the Darty did the trick in filling up the box. I measured the bars before cutting to 2" so they would not be too large for the boxes and the cellophane aided in keeping both cookies from shifting around.