Thirty Days and Counting!

Well I have survived over thirty days! I want to thank those of you who have sent me note, sent recipes, forwarded this little adventure along or even shared it on Facebook.

So how about we have a little fun with yeast rolls and bread.  I have mentioned several times making a “Cheryl worthy yeast roll” and have gotten a few requests for the recipe.  The other day, I was scanning the internet for “gift in a jar” ideas, and came across the cutest idea for bread rolls.

Instead of using bread plates, they took the little four-ounce jelly jars, and baked a yeast roll in it. I do not have any jars that small, but I did try it with a pint jar. The idea worked out well, besides the fact I did not have enough dough in the jar.

The trick is to coat the inside of the jar with either olive or vegetable oil and then place cornmeal in the bottom. These two steps will prevent the bread from sticking and your guests will be able to remove the bread with no problems.

Cheryl worthy Yeast Rolls

Ingredients:

1/2 cup water

½ cup warmed milk

1 large egg

1/3 cup butter, softened

1/3 cup white sugar

3 ½ cups of all purpose flour

2 ½ teaspoon yeast

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375°F

Place all ingredients into bread machine on dough setting, let run its cycle.

By hand method:

Slowly adding flour last, mix all ingredients in a large bowl.

Remove from bowl and knead several times before placing in an oiled bowl

Cover with a clean, lint free, towel and allow dough to rise, doubling in size.

 When bread machine has ended its cycle OR your hand made dough has doubled in size.

Form dough into to 20 to 24 individual rolls.

Place rolls on cooking sheet brushed with vegetable oil.

Cover again with a towel and allow dough to rise a half-hour before baking for 12 to 15 minutes.

Remove from oven and brush each roll with melted butter.

Stew or Soup? You Decide...

My parents were born in raised in Kentucky, my husband’s in Texas. Here lies the base to an eighteen-year long debate over is it stew or soup.

Growing up when mom made stew it was a thick gravy sauce, with beef, potatoes, peas and a single bay leaf that always managed to end up in some ones bowl. Mom served it with bread and butter.

My husband grew up with stew that was broth based, beef, potatoes, carrots, tomatoes and one onion. He eats it with crackers.

Can you see where the debate comes from?

My loving husband states it is because he is from the south and they put tomatoes in everything. I have been deemed a Yankee. Well I hate to break this to my husband, but his father's side of the family was not even American's during the Civil War! When the namesake did immigrate to America, he went to Kentucky. Therefore, if I am a Yankee, he is too!

I will leave each of you to decide which label you would like to classify this recipe, in our house it is called "Oh, that’s good!" 

If you have a picky eater like mine. Try a ladle full with only a small bit of broth and top with shredded cheddar jack cheese.

Paddy's Beef Stew (Soup)

1 ½ to 2 lbs of beef stew meat or roast cut into 2 inch pieces

1 yellow onion, coarsely chopped

3 carrots sliced

4 large potatoes, chopped to bite size pieces

2 large (28-30 oz) cans of whole tomatoes

Ground pepper

1 Tablespoon of vegetable oil

In soup pot, add oil and brown stew meat (personally, I add crushed garlic or garlic powder to the meat at this point.) Add enough water to cover meat, cover pot and let simmer until meat is tender. (If you have meat tenderizer go ahead and sprinkle some in) Simmer until almost all of the water has evaporated from pot, usually takes 1 ½ hours.

Add potatoes, onion and carrots.  Crush tomatoes while adding to pot along with the juice.

Cover pot and simmer until vegetables are done, season with pepper to taste.

Crock-pot version – Yes, you can make stew in a crock-pot!

Place meat tenderizer, stew meat, pepper, (garlic,) onion and enough water to reach almost halfway of crock-pot. Set to highest setting, replace lid and let simmer for 6 hours.

After six hours, water should be mostly gone. Place carrots and potatoes in a microwavable dish (I prefer an 8-cup Pyrex measuring cup) cover with water and microwave on high for ten minutes. The vegetables should fork tender but not completely cooked. Add tomatoes, potatoes and carrots to crock-pot and let cook for an hour on high temperature.

Spiced Coffee

It is no secret I have a love hate relationship with coffee. Growing up, my bedroom was closest to the kitchen. My parents loved to grind their own coffee beans, before grinding your own was fashionable. Every morning I woke to beans being poured into the antique crank coffee grinder. The grinding seemed to take hours in "kid" time, in actuality it took no longer than five minutes.

I took my first job when I was a junior in high school and for Christmas, I thought I would get my parents something special without saying "Hey can I have money to go Christmas shopping?" Poking around Sun Valley Mall, I came across Williams Sonoma. My mom loved to shop this store for all of her gourmet club meetings. I had my "A Christmas Story" moment when there in the window was a Braun electric coffee grinder! Electric had to be quicker method of getting those dang beans ground so I could sleep, right?

Christmas morning came with happy parents laughing I did not like the hand grinder and bought them an electric one. There I sat smiling ear to ear, because on December 26, I was going to sleep in past six! I woke the next morning to a sound, which could be compared to a locomotive running wide open, the steam whistle blowing while chugging through a convent! Did I mention I hate coffee?

For me to drink coffee it has to be 60% dairy, 30% sugar, and 10% coffee. I have to kill the taste of the coffee somehow. I still do not understand how something that smells so wonderful, tastes so bad!

When my husband was stationed in Texas, I worked in a county probation department. Where I became friends with Terra. Even though, we were born one day and at least fifteen years apart we clicked like we had known each other for years. For our birthdays, we would bring each other a Starbucks Venti Carmel Frappuccino. One day Terra let me try her coffee with cinnamon in it, hmm not too bad... but I still needed it fully loaded with sugar and milk.

Yesterday morning after enjoying a slice of Pumpkin Bread, I decided to try something. I had made an 8-cup pot of coffee earlier, (I told you I love the smell of coffee.) I threw out the coffee filter and grounds, then added a fresh filter to the basket. To the basket, I added 1 teaspoon of nutmeg, cinnamon, and ground cloves (I would suggest cutting the cloves back to half a teaspoon.) I also added something I knew would not work but I tried it anyway. I added 1/2 cup of white sugar into the mixture. Next I poured the coffee from the carafe back into the coffee maker and re-brewed it (I can see my dad saying here "oh yuck." Nevertheless, in reality I did not re-brew the coffee since it did not go through the grounds again.) The sugar did not work that well, since it would not dissolve quick enough to make it through the filter without me having to stir it.

Minus the sugar mess, the coffee came out tasting wonderful. The spices gave it a warm rich taste that made me think of winter. I would pair it with the Pumpkin Bread Recipe or even Gingerbread during the holidays for something extra special.

 

The Panic of The Lost Pumpkin Bread Recipe

I have a stack of recipes that are loose and unbound. They are either hand written, or printed from the internet and emails. When I want a recipe, I pull out the stack and start shifting through it. I am the only person in the house who can touch the stack. I know exactly where  a recipe should be and they should never get out of “my” order.

Huge panic erupts when I cannot find a recipe. The thought or idea that I have lost or miss placed a recipe is devastating. Yes, yes, yes, I know, I should have a better system for keeping recipes, but I am a procrastinator and a creature of disorganized chaos.

Two weeks ago, I made pumpkin bread. This weekend I went looking for the recipe and it was nowhere to found. I went through the stack of recipes twice and could not find it. My over active imagination started churning with the “what if’s.” What if it got thrown away when my husband cleaned the kitchen? Did Lily, our paper-shredding cat, get her paws on it? Was it mistaken as scratch paper and used by the kids for math homework? Gasp!

Lily, A.K.A. The Paper Shredder

  So panic with setting in, I start pulling cookbooks out of my cabinet and riffling through them. This is one of those recipes, I do not need to read what is on the paper; it is burned in my memory. Though without the paper in my hand, I cannot remember any of it besides canned pumpkin.

 After emptying the cabinet, the recipe is nowhere to found. My kitchen is a disaster, and Lily was stalking recipes that have fallen on the floor. Dejected I sit down at my computer, only to look over at the printer. Yep, sitting on top of the printer is my recipe for pumpkin bread. I placed it there to scan into the computer, in case I ever lost the paper copy.



Pumpkin Bread

Ingredients:

1 cup vegetable oil

3 large eggs

1 16 oz can of pumpkin (not pumpkin pie)

3 cups of all purpose flour
3 cups of sugar
1 teaspoon of ground cloves

2 teaspoons of cinnamon

2 teaspoons of ground nutmeg (if you have the time, grind it fresh)

1 teaspoon of baking soda

½ teaspoon of baking powder

** Optional you can add either add 1 cup chopped walnuts or pumpkin seeds**

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350° F. Prepare two 9X5X3 inch loaf pans by buttering and flouring.

In large bowl beat sugar and oil until blended. Mix in eggs and pumpkin.

In separate bowl sift remaining dry ingredients, and then slowly stir into pumpkin mixture.

Divide batter between the prepared pans, sprinkle with nuts and bake for 70 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.

Cool on wire racks.

This recipe can be used to make one dozen pumpkin muffins, prepare tins as above or use cupcake papers. Bake for 20 minutes, insert toothpick to check doneness