Holiday Rolls

This recipe descends from my Grandmother, and has become a holiday tradition in our family. Every Thanksgiving and Christmas, I bake at least one batch; usually two or three, particularly for large gatherings. The recipe can be halved for smaller occasions, but make sure you have enough time: Starting at six or seven in the morning ensures enough rise time as long as you don't need them before two in the afternoon.

2 Tbsp. (or 2 packets) dry yeast
2 Cups warm water (warmer than room temperature, but not too hot for the inner wrist)
2 sticks butter (¼ cup each)
1 Cup sugar
½ Tbsp. salt
6 eggs, beaten
7 - 8 Cups white flour (optionally, one cup can be wheat)

Dissolve the yeast in the water. Melt one of the sticks of butter; mix the melted butter, the sugar, the salt, and the eggs into the yeast water. Add 7 cups of flour (including all of the wheat flour, if any) all at once, and mix to make a soft dough. Knead, adding flour as needed, until it holds together and isn't sticky. Let rise, covered, for 2½ to 3 hours.

Melt the other stick of butter. Lightly brush the counter top, rolling pin, pizza cutter, baking sheets, and your hands with butter. Divide dough into fourths. For each piece in turn:

1. Form into a ball.
2. Roll out into a circle the size of a small pizza.
3. Brush the top with butter.
4. Cut into sixteen pizza slices.
5. Roll each triangle from large end to small, placing it on a baking sheet with the small end underneath.

With remaining melted butter, brush the top of each roll. Let rise for 2½ to 3 hours.

Bake at 350°F for 11 minutes or until golden brown. Serve in a cloth-lined basket. Makes 64 rolls.

Notes and Hints

• Forgetting the salt is not a tragedy, but don't omit it intentionally.
• Softer dough needs less rising time, and results in a fluffier roll, but firmer dough holds its shape better. If the rolls unroll themselves while rising, the dough is too firm.
• Allow an hour for rolling time. It never seems like it should take that long, but it does.
• Place the rolls diagonally on the baking sheet, with larger ones in the corners and smaller ones in the center.
• A single recipe typically requires three half-size baking sheets, or four smaller ones. A double batch can be crammed onto five.
• Allow enough space between the rolls on the baking sheets for expansion. They should be just touching when they come out of the oven, but pull apart easily.
• Resist the temptation to bake two sheets at once.
• If you have a convection oven, turn on the convection for the first few minutes, but not the entire baking time.
• For best results, serve immediately. Once cool, they store well in a plastic bag until the next day.
• These rolls don't really need to be served with butter or jelly. Honey is interesting, but also unnecessary.
• The recipe can be adapted to cinnamon-walnut pull-aparts, but I keep failing to do so successfully.
• Feel free to experiment.

Chicken and Dumplings

Tis the season for comfort food. This recipe for Chicken and Dumplings isn't some great culinary masterpiece but it's delicious and cheap. Like six servings for about $15 cheap. It'll also leave you with a decent amount of broth, so if you line up something that requires chicken broth for the next night, you'll save yourself a couple bucks and end up with superior broth to boot. It takes a lot of time but it isn't particularly labor intensive. Have a book or magazine handy.

Thankful for...a new cheese?

We went over to friends' for T-day, meaning that for what must be the fourth straight year we didn't have to do any cooking. Well, Akiko made a pie, but I'll let her write about that if she feels like it.

Which meant no new recipes tried out. We ate a lot of things that I want to try someday, though, so blogwise there might have been something in it. In the meantime, we did discover an awesome cheese that somebody brought to the party.

It's a Spanish cheese called Idiazabal. Made from sheep's milk, although I don't think it tastes sheepy at all. In fact the person who brought it said it was cow's milk (or I misremembered), and I believed it until we bought some tonight.

The only Spanish cheese I knew about previously was manchego, and I'm wild about that. This is maybe a little milder, and the variety we have is smoked, so it almost tastes like a gouda, but without the gouda flavor. Like, it's sharp and dry but not nutty. Buttery? I need to develop a pretentious cheese vocabulary, obviously. In any case, it's real good. A new fave.

Chicken Marsala

Hey everyone! I am sorry that I haven't been doing anything on here in a while. I haven't been cooking much lately with school and stuff. I know everyone knows about this recipe but I have never made it before so I decided to take a little time for myself away from homework today to make a real meal.

This recipe is originally from the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. I had to make some changes and I included those.

1lb chicken breasts (I bought purdue ones that were already really really thin so I didn't have to pound them myself)
1/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp. dry marjoram
salt to taste
pepper
2 cups sliced mushrooms (I used a carton of sliced baby bellas from the store)
2 small spring onions chopped finely
butter/margarine/cooking oil (this is where I had issues)
1/4 cup chicken broth
1/4 cup Marsala wine

Mix flour, marjoram, some pepper, and a little salt on a plate. Dredge your flattened chicken breasts and set aside. In a non-stick pan melt (med/low heat) about 2 tbs butter/margarine and add a tiny bit of cooking oil (The cookbook called for so much less and left me with sticking sad mushrooms until i added more lipids!!). Sautee your onion and mushrooms until the mushrooms are tender and browned. Remove the mushrooms/onions from the pan. DON'T RINSE/WASH/WIPE the pan - you need the good browned stuff on the bottom for later. Add more butter and oil (the same amount) and brown your chickens over high heat. This should go really quickly (about 4 minutes to cook a breast). Turn them over as they cook to ensure they brown on both sides. Remove from pan and set aside when they're done. Put your mushroom stuff back in the pan (low heat now) and add your chicken stock and Marsala. Add a pinch of salt to taste here (not much, the sauce is nice a little sweet in my opinion). Turn up the heat and proceed to deglaze the pan while reducing the sauce. This is where all the crusty junk from the bottom of the pan becomes magical :) All that stuff = Flava! But I digress. When your sauce is at a consistency you approve of, pour the sauce and mushrooms over the chicken breast. Enjoy. This serves 4 technically. I say 3 without a side dish if you are lazy like me.

Black Bean Enchiladas

I know this is two posts in one day, but I actually had a few minutes to think about stuff and get around to writing it. We made enchiladas today and this is one of our favorite recipes. I've made them for other people a bunch of times and it always goes over well. I cobbled it together starting with a soft taco recipe and it's kind of morphed over time, so feel free to tweak it as you like.

Filling:
one 15-oz can black beans
1 cup frozen corn (don't bother to unfreeze it)
1 medium zucchini, chopped to bite-size
some mushrooms--one small can or a handful of fresh

1. Heat oven to 375F
2. Mix up some filling--feel free to substitute veggies and whatnot
3. Get a 9x13 pan and spread some enchilada sauce on the bottom and sides (keeps the tortillas from sticking so much).
4. Fill some tortillas with filling--three or four tablespoons each--roll them up and put them in the pan.
5. Pour the rest of the enchilada sauce over the top, cover with foil, and cook 30 minutes.
6. When the enchiladas come out, spread some grated cheese on top and place the foil back loosely. Just leave it on top of the stove and the cheese will melt great.

Not that you needed instructions on how to fill some enchiladas, but there they are. If you put the cheese on before baking it'll kind of overmelt and disappear. These enchiladas will be messy but tasty, and when I have sour cream around I put a little dollop on top before eating.

As for enchilada sauce just use your favorite if you have one. If not, I'm partial to La Victoria (hot or mild, they both work fine) and Rosarita will do fine, too.

New Food November

So I've eaten new foods in the last while but I didn't write them all down. Sadness, truly. But here are a few for November:

1. Brianna's Chipotle Cheddar dressing, which is pretty interesting. The chipotle gives it a nice kick and the cheddar part is a little weird for me but good. I mean, it actually has a slighly cheddary taste, and I've never experienced that in a dressing. I was expecting a little more ranch-like, I guess.

2. Leicester red cheese--the particular one I bought was Kerrygold but I've seen a couple different brands around. It pretty much tastes like cheddar (medium sharpness, I'd say) but it's definitely more red. If you something exciting for a cheese platter or garnish this would be cool.

3. Bundaberg root beer from Australia, which is pretty good. Definitely on the sharp and gingery side, but that's not a bad thing in my opinion. Root beer is pretty much the only soda Eric really loves, so when I spot an exciting one I bring it home to try.

4. Sweet Baby Ray's barbecue sauce--this isn't exactly a new food, but it's become my favorite barbecue sauce. I like the hot and spicy one, but Eric's partial to the hickory and brown sugar, which I must say is quite nice. The flavors I've tried have been more sweet than smoky, though, so it depends on your taste.

Tofu Potato Scramble

This is one of my favorite cold weather comfort foods, one of my only breakfast-for-dinner type recipes. This recipe makes enough for two with probably some leftovers.

2 Tbs olive oil
One 16-oz bag frozen O'Brien potatoes
6 veggie sausage links, cut into 1/2-inch rounds (I'm sure this would work with real sausage)
1 tsp hot pepper sauce, plus more to taste
1/4 tsp ground turmeric
one 14-oz package firm tofu, drained
1 tsp creole or cajun seasoning
1/3 cup cream cheese (I just eyeball it)
2 green onions, white and green parts, chopped (about 1/4 cup)

1. Heat your oil in a large skillet on medium-high or so. Cook the sausage until golden brown and set aside, then cook the potatoes 8 to 10 minutes until they're hot and starting to brown.
2. Combine the hot sauce, turmeric, and one Tbs water in a small bowl. Crumble the tofu over the potatoes and add the sausage back in, then pour your hot sauce mixture on top. Sprinkle the creole seasoning, stir, and cook about 3 minutes until it's heated through.
3. Season with salt and pepper and take it off the heat. Stir in some dollops of cream cheese and sprinkle the green onions on top.