Tag Archives: homemade bread

I made bread!

24 Jan

Two years ago, I epically failed at making bread. I went into it with such gusto… but it was so traumatic that it took a full 2 years for me to pull up the courage to try again.

I received a recipe that my friend Lillian had been using for years.  By the time I put all the dough together and kneaded, I wound up with a perfect ball of dough.  A much better state than the one from 2 years ago at this point.

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And then I left for a bit and came back the requested 1 hour later and was overjoyed to see my dough had risen SO MUCH that it was playing pic-a-boo under my dish towel.

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Now that was SOME rise!

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I pulled it out and took out some aggression by punching it in the face. (And while you’re there… LIKE NYC Nom Nom on Facebook!)

 

I then split it into 2 loaf pans and one mini loaf pan.

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And since I just can’t 100% follow a recipe without adding something to it… I painted the top of olive oil and then added flake salt to the top of the mini loaf.

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And when it came out of the oven, I was ecstatic.  Not only did it LOOK like bread… it SMELLED like bread!

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And it’s hard to resist a wee loaf.

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The bigger loafs also… amazingly… both LOOKED and SMELLED like bread.  It was so satisfying! (So satisfying, in fact, that I debated not cutting into it just in case I screwed something up)

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But cut into it we did and it sliced up perfectly.

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And then we ate it with homemade jam…

And it was good.

Damn good.

It was BREAD! Real bread!

And I made it.

 

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RECIPE
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Homemade White Bread from Lillian (original source unknown)

INGREDIENTS:
7 1/4 to 7 3/4 cups bread flour
1 tablespoon nonfat dry-milk powder (they sell this in big packets in big boxes)
2 packages active dry yeast
2 2/3 cups water
1/3 cups shortening
3 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons salt

DIRECTIONS:

  • In a large mixing bowl, combine 3 cups of the bread flour, the nonfat milk powder and yeast; set aside.
  • In a medium saucepan, heat and stir water, shortening, sugar and salt until just warm and shortening almost melts (I actually got nervous because I know temperature is important for yeast, so I looked it up and found this handy dandy chart. I realized my water was WAY too hot already, so I pulled it and let it cool down to below 130°)
  • Add water mixture to the dry mixture. Beat with an electric mixer on low speed for 30 seconds, scraping the sides of the bowl constantly.
  • Beat on high speed for 3 minutes.
  • Stir in as much of the remaining flour as you can with a wooden spoon.
  • Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface.
  • Knead in enough of the remaining flour to make a moderately stiff dough that’s smooth and elastic (8-9 minutes total). Shape the dough into a ball.
  • Place in a lightly greased bowl, turning once to grease the surface of the dough. Cover and let dough rise in a warm place until doubled in size. (45-60 minutes)
  • Punch dough down.
  • Turn out again onto a lightly floured surface. Divide into 2 or 3 equal portions.
  • Cover; let rest for 10 minutes.
  • Meanwhile, lightly grease two 9x5x3 inch loaf pans or three 8x4x2 inch loaf pans.
  • Shape each portion of dough into a loaf by rolling on a lightly floured surface into a 12×8 inch rectangle. Roll up, jelly-roll style, starting from the short side. Seal with fingertips as you roll.
  • Place into prepared loaf pans.
  • Cover and let rise in a warm place until almost doubled (20-30 minutes).  (Mine didn’t really rise MUCH more, I guess because it rose SO much in the first round, but it turned out just fine)
  • Bake in a 375 degree oven for 30-40 minutes or until bread sounds hollow when you tap the top with your finger. (My mini loaf took about 20 minutes total)
  • Immediately remove bread from pans and cool on wire racks.

YIELD: 2 or 3 loaves

One year of NYC Nom Nom

9 Feb

Today marks the one year anniversary of when I officially started NYC Nom Nom.

My first blog entries were definitely a “hello cyberspace!” entry without much substance.  It was a simple list of my current favorite restaurants in NYC followed up by my recipe for the Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars that everyone loves.

My favorite eating moments of the past year were WD50 and Thanksgiving.  I also won TWO meals: one at Fishtail from Foodbuzz and the other at Landmarc from Time Warner Center’s Circle of Taste (and won a cooking class at Williams Sonoma from them too!)  I even got to eat on a completely different continent for the first time.

As for the bad… I had a casualty of bread, had an absolutely terrible meal at a diner that some people love and some people hate, had my gallbladder removed, and was nearly killed by Co.

I also really learned how to cook this year.  I managed to find a love for brussel sprouts and learned how to make pasta.  I no longer can be accused of being such a bad cook that I hermetically seal pots.  I even won my last company’s Top Chef Competition.

It has been quite an adventure for me and I have loved this little side project and hope to continue it for a long time to come.

My friends, my family, and even my mom called ME for recipes and suggestions this past year.  My Grandma even asked me for a cooking tip last weekend when we all sat down to a wonderful, homemade meal together.  My Grandma taught me a lot about food (especially baking) and really taught me not just a love for food, but a love for the traditions of food, especially surrounded by family and loved ones.  She passed away the very next day after our family meal together.  I will be forever thankful for all she taught me and for that last meal we shared together.


Grandma Litty (May 26, 1927 – February 1, 2010) enjoying a banana cream pie on a boat in Colorado- 2007.

Failed Bread and Tuna Noodle Casserole

8 Jan

I was watching Chef Academy, again, and they made this bread that looked heavenly stuffed with cheese.  How do you get better than baked goods filled with cheese?  I had never made bread, but having made many a baked good in the past, I figured I could get some kneading practice in.  They made it look so easy.

Literally the next day I pulled up the recipe online and it seemed simple enough.  I was careful to measure well and concentrate on what I was doing (I’m usually a pretty hap hazard baker… I know… hand slap for me). I followed the first 2 directions:

For the Bread:

1. In a large bowl mix together the flour, salt, butter and yeast.

2. Stir in the water and mix into a soft dough.

As soon as I added the water (1 quart) to the flour (1 pound) I knew something was wrong.  It just looked too much like paper mache and not enough like dough.  I thought maybe the flour would thicken it so I mixed… and mixed… and mixed.  Soft dough was not to be had.

So I looked back and determined it was the flour to water ratio that was off and added more flour.  And I mixed and I mixed… and I added flour and I added flour… and this is what happened:

I couldn’t even make it into a ball.  I think by the time I had realized the ratios were off and added more flour, the yeast had already reacted (or something) and it was an EPIC FAIL.  On top of that, I noticed that the ingredients list sugar but it didn’t say anywhere in the recipe when to add the sugar.  It was at this point that I cursed Chef Novelli.

It was a sticky mess that made a mess of everything.

Including my pretty brand new Kitchenaid.  ::Pout::

So I had now had my biggest cooking fail since hermetically sealing a pot in college (WHOOPS!) and I still had to do SOMETHING for dinner.  Luckily yet another cooking show (Top Chef finale… I’m such a food television sucker) had me craving tuna noodle casserole and I had everything in stock.  So total change of plans and I had this assembled in less than 10 minutes and I was thinking to myself “why don’t I make this ridiculously easy casserole more often?”

Mmmm… layers:

It turned out decent, though a little plain.  I think I need to find a way to spice this up a bit.  And add roasted garlic.  Mmmmm.

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RECIPE
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Since the bread recipe was obviously ENTIRELY WRONG, I won’t reiterate it here.  I have a new bread recipe from my friend, Lillian, so once I succeed with that, I’ll post it.

TUNA NOODLE CASSEROLE

Ingredients:

  • 1 (8 ounce) package wide egg noodles
  • 1/4 cup butter, cubed
  • 4 slices american cheese (I used shredded since it was on hand)
  • 1 (6 ounce) can tuna, drained
  • 1 (10.75 ounce) can condensed cream of mushroom soup
  • 1/4 cup bread crumbs
  • Optional: Canned peas

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add pasta and cook for 8 to 10 minutes or until al dente; drain.
  2. In a 1 1/2 quart glass casserole dish, layer noodles, butter cubes, 2 slices of cheese, 1/2 of the tuna, and 1/2 of the soup. Repeat the layering with the remaining ingredients. Top the casserole with bread crumbs. (ok… I didn’t layer… I stirred it all together… oops.)
  3. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 10 to 15 minutes. (mine took some additional time)
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