Recipes

Last night I made dinner for my parents and I. I made a vegetable chicken soup and homemade bread. The soup was ok, but if you make it yourself I would recommend putting more salt in. I also added carrots, and put in two extra tablespoons of orzo. The soup was somewhat bland in flavor, despite the massive amounts of flavorful veggies that it contains. The recipe says that it is "diabetes appropriate, heart healthy, low sat fat, low sodium, low carb, low calorie, and healthy weight", so I'm not suprised at the small amounts of salt and orzo.

As I mentioned before, I also made homemade bread. I used one of my favorite bread recipes, which suprisingly enough comes from one of the American Girl cookbooks that my sister and I used to bake from while dressed up in one of our gazillion dress-up outfits playing an elaborate game of pioneers. The cookbook was Kirsten's, in case you were wondering.

It's originally a recipe for rye bread, but I usually just make it a white bread. I use all white flour instead of putting in any rye and simply leave out the fennel. Either way, I definitely recommend this recipe.

Ingredients:

3/4 c. milk

2 Tbsp. soft butter

1/2 c. lukewarm water

2 packages dry yeast (or about 2 Tbsp.)

1/2 c. dark brown sugar

1 Tbsp. ground fennel seed

1 tsp. sald

1 c. white flour

3 c. rye flour

1 Tbsp. vegetable oil

1. Heat milk in microwave until lukewarm. Cut butter into pieces and add to milk. Stir to help butter melt.

2. Measure the lukewarm water into the mixing bowl. Add yeast. Stir well. Set bowl aside for 5 min.

3. Add the milk mixture to the yeast mixture. Stir in the brown sugar, fennel, and salt. Add the white flour, and stir to mix ingredients.

4. Gradually mix in 2 cups of the rye flour. The dough will be very stiff and sticky. Add enough of the remaining rye flour so that you can shape the dough into a ball. Do not add the remaining flour (You'll need it for setp 6).

5. Cover bowl with towel and let dough rest in warm spot for 10-15 min.

6. Place the dough on surface that has been sprinkled with remaining flour. Dust your hands with flour and knead the dough until no longer sticky.

7. Knead for 5-10 min. It will spring back when you poke it with your finger when it had been kneaded enough.

8. Cover the dough again and let rest while you wash the mixing bowl.

9. Coat the inside of the bowl with oil. Roll the dough around in the bowl until it is coated with oil. This will prevent it from cracking while it rises. Cover with towel and let rise for 45 min.

10. When the ough is double it's size, test it by poiking it with your finger. If it does NOT spring back, it is ready to be shaped.

11. Oil the cookie sheet. Sprinkle it with rye flour (I skip this step)

12. Punch the dough once or twice to remove air. Knead several times.

13. Shape the dough into round loaf about 7 in. across (I make my oblong)

14. Place on cookie sheet, let rise again for 45 min.

15. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Pierce the top with a fork (I slit it with a knife)

16. Bake for 50-60 min. When the top is brown, tap the top of the loaf. If it sounds hollow, the bread is done.

17. While the bread is still warm, rub the top with butter.

Today for lunch, I decided to use some of the leftover bread to make a sandwhich. One of my most favorite combinations in the ENTIRE WORLD for a sandwhich is mozzarella cheese, tomato, and basil (if you haven't had a tomato mozeralla panini at Panera Bread, go out RIGHT now and get one!! Well, wait til you're done reading this, and THEN go).

So, I made a panini for myself using those exact ingredients. We didn't have fresh basil, which is definitely preferable, but other than the it was perfect. Typically this kind of sandwhich is made with a more herby bread like ciabatta, so it was a nice experiment to try it on a sweeter bread. Give it a try if you feel so inclined, and let me know how you like it!