Sunday, May 13, 2007

Rosemary Foccacia

My rosemary plant is thriving. I felt like using some - so I am trying this recipe from Recipezaar

1 (1/4 ounce) package active dry yeast (1 Tablespoon) 1 2/3 cups lukewarm water (105 to 115 F) 5 cups unbleached all purpose flour, plus additional for kneading 2 1/2 teaspoons table salt 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

FOR THE TOPPING

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil 1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh rosemary 1 teaspoon coarse sea salt

Not the one? See other Rosemary Salt Topped Foccacia Recipes

  1. Stir together 1 2/3 cups lukewarm water and yeast in bowl of mixer and let stand until creamy, about 5 minutes. Add 5 cups flour, 1/4 cup oil, and 2 1/2 teaspoons table salt and beat with paddle attachment at medium speed until a dough forms or use a wooden spoon if you don’t have this equipment. Replace paddle with dough hook and knead dough at high speed until soft, smooth, and sticky, 3 to 4 minutes. Or use a wooden spoon or your hand to mix. Mix at least 8 minutes by hand.
  2. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead in 1 to 2 tablespoons more flour. Knead dough 1 minutes (it will still be slightly sticky), then transfer to a lightly oiled bowl and turn dough to coat with oil. Let rise, covered with plastic wrap, at warm room temperature, until doubled in bulk, 1 to 1 1/2 hours.
  3. Press dough evenly into a generously oiled 15 by 10 by 1 inch baking pan. Let dough rise, covered completely with a kitchen towel, until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour.
  4. Preheat oven to 425°F.
  5. Stir together rosemary and 3 Tablespoons oil. Make shallow indentations all over dough with your fingertips, then brush with rosemary oil, letting it pool in indentations. Sprinkle sea salt evenly over focaccia and bake in middle of oven until golden, 20 to 25 minutes.
  6. Immediately invert a rack over pan and flip focaccia onto rack.
  7. Favorite Recipes Phoenix Place.

RICOTTA PANCAKES

RICOTTA PANCAKES

This is from Cooks.com: link

Dry ingredients:
1 tsp. baking powder
1 pinch of salt
1/2 c. flour
Also need:
3 lg. eggs, separated
1/2 lb. Ricotta
1/2 c. whole milk
Combine the dry ingredients and set out your milk and cheese. Whip egg whites until very stiff. Combine Ricotta, egg yolks and milk with the dry ingredients. Then fold in egg whites. Have griddle hot (test by dropping a few drips of water onto the griddle. If water bubbles skitter around on the griddle it is just right).

Drop batter onto hot griddle with a spoon - depending on the size of spoon, one or two tablespoons at a time. Pancakes should be about two to three inches in diameter. Cook as you would regular pancakes.

Serve with your favorite topping or with white sugar and butter. These pancakes are very light and delicate - and delicious!!

Recipe can be doubled. Pancakes are very good cold when topped with jam, rolled up and eaten with fingers.

Sunday, May 6, 2007

Turkey Burgers

Turkey Cheddar Burgers

1 lb ground turkey
1 cup low-fat shredded cheddar
1 tbs balsamic vinegar
1 tsp parsley
1 tbs dried chives or 2 of fresh chopped
1 tsp dried onion
1 tsp garlic powder

Dash of salt, pepper, paprika

Form loosely packed burgers.
Spray a non stick pan with cooking spray.
Heat pan on high add burgers to hot pan reduce heat to medium cover pan (keeps everything moist)
Cook 3-4 minutes on each side turning as little as possible.

Thursday, May 3, 2007

Alfredo sauce

Take whatever noodles you are making out of the pot they boiled in. Reserve a bit of cooking water.
pour about .4 C of cream into the pot - bring it to a simmer.
Add a sprinkle of cinnamon and some pepper
put the noodles back (they have to still be warm)
throw in a few handfuls of freshly grated Parmesan cheese.
Stir, add some cooking water if it is needed for consistency.

That should make a creamy sauce.

Roasted Tomato Sauce

This a recipe from Cooks Illustrated

3 lb. vine-ripened grocery store tomatoes - cut in half pole to pole
1 medium onion cut into disks
3 cloves of garlic peeled
2 T tomato paste

Pre-heat the oven to 400
line a cookie sheet with foil - and put a cooling rack on it
put the tomatoes, garlic, and onion in a bowl - toss with the tomato paste

Place a piece of foil in the center of the rack - put the garlic and onions on it
place the tomatoes on the rest of the rack around the garlic and onions.
Put the tray in the oven for about 20 minutes

Put the roaster tomatoes, onion, and garlic in a food processor and process until the tomatoes are broken down.

Yum!

Pasta Maker!

I found a new manual pasta maker at a flea market - it has lots of attachments. I tries making fettuccine and ravioli. The first time, I made the dough too wet. The fettuccine didn't really separate - and the ravioli was a disaster - it rolled back up in the roller and was very gooey. The fettuccine worked pretty well. Here is the recipe I used:

4Cs flour and 4 eggs, 1.5 T olive oil - with everything thrown in a food processor and pulsed until it started to get sticky enough to form into a ball. I added drops of water until it seems stick enough - but I used too much water.

I tried again without the food processor - this time I used 1C flour, 1 egg (beaten), and about 3/4T of olive - and no water at first. I made a mound of flour, made a well, put the egg in the well, mixed with a fork, etc.. Eventually the mix became a dough, I added about a T of water - tsp at a time - the dough was much drier, but it did hold together. It was harder to get it started in the roller, but the noodles were much better. Yum!

Sweet Potato disks

This is an easy sweet potato side dish. You can set it up, get it going, and do other stuff - you will probably forget about it and then when you remember it will be done!

Pre-heat oven to 400
Pre-heat an oven safe skillet.
Cut two sweet potatoes into disks a bit less than 1/2 an inch thick.
Put the disks in a bowl and toss them with a bit of canola oil and some salt.
Put the oiled, salted disks in the skillet - flat sides down - cook them for about 4 minutes on each side. The sides should be slightly browned.
Put the skillet with the oven for about 15 minutes.

Yum!!!