Breads The Mister has made

I've mentioned before The Mister has taken up bread baking and he is very, very good at it.

Don't tell him, but I've bought him some "bread making tools" for Christmas. 

I'm so excited and hope he likes them and that he doesn't decide in the next month that he doesn't want to make bread any more.

I thought I'd do a round up of some of the breads that he's made lately.

He's mostly been baking from The Hot Bread Kitchen (his favorite) and 100 Breads.  As I type this, there is a preferment in the kitchen from Bread, Bread, Bread for baguettes to go with tonight's dinner.  Like I said, his hobby blesses us all.

Mincemeat Tarts from 100 Breads

We had the best Christmas we could this year, and missed my mom terribly every second of it. 

I know it would have made her so happy to see the kids with my dad, and she would have laughed a lot at how big and smart and silly the kids are.

We did a traditional dinner this year, turkey and all the trimmings, and I patted myself on the back for how perfectly the turkey came out.

The highlight for me was the homemade mince tarts - my favorite.  We used the recipe from Paul Hollywood's 100 Breads which is easy - the pastry is so simple even I can't mess it up, and the filling is simply jarred mince with some apples and mandarin oranges stirred in.  We left out the oranges because my dad didnt' like the sound of that, but I'd like to try it sometime.  I forgot to dust them with sugar, so there they are naked on the right in the photo below.

The ones on the right were a Christmas Eve gift from a thoughtful person, and we had fun at Christmas dinner tasting them both and pretending we were judges on a baking show trying to pick the winner.  It was super close, but thankfully mine squeaked out a victory.

Easter Sunday Dinner - Scalloped Potatos and NIgella's Chocolate Cake and Sad Bread

We had a lovely delicious ham this Easter will all the trimmings. Busted out some special mustards, made some (mediocre, sadly) bread, and put on our elastic waist pants for the feast.

I made scalloped potatos from scratch which, frankly, I do not do often.  I quite like the box mix and I am not ashamed.  But we had a ton of potatos to use up and so my box scalloped mix sits on the shelf for another day.  

We made an enormous pan of potatos from Gimme Some Oven and they were very tasty.

For dessert I made Nigella's Easter Egg Nest Cake which is just a flourless chocolate cake covered in Easter candy.  I skipped topping the cake with chocolate whipped cream and candy, and we just scooped large dollops of cream on our slices on our plates.  It ain't a pretty cake, but it was so delicious I was forced to eat leftovers for breakfast a few days later.

I made the Milk Bread from 100 Breads and it didn't turn out super well. 

I think part of the problem was I didn't get my timing right and the dough wasn't ready to be baked before I needed the oven for the ham and potatos, and so I baked it in the toaster oven.  

Our toaster oven sucks.

It did have a nice flavor, it was just small and sad.

easy ciabatta bread

I dusted off my copy of Paul Hollywood's 100 Great Breads a couple of weekends ago.  I feel like I always say the same thing, but this book is so great!

I wanted to make bread on a Sunday but I'd started late and didn't have a lot of time, so the Ciabatta bread was a perfect recipe to make to go with dinner that night - less than 2 hours of rising and baking time!

It made 4 beautiful little loaves that not only went well with our stew, but also made delicious sandwiches.

The recipe on the Paul Hollywood website differs slightly than the book; longer rising times, less yeast, but I am sure both will make delicious bread.


So far I have made 11 recipes from the book -
Crusty Cob
Cheese and Onion Soda Bread
Batch Bread
Cottage Loaf
Pain de Campagne
The Ciabatta dough, which we used the pizza dough
Ciabatta
Onion Fougasse
Mince Pies
Farl 
Mixed Rolls

I won't make all of the recipes in the book but there are so many more I want to try.  And I found a list tucked into the book from my dad - recipes he wants me to make for him.  So I better get cracking!
  

Sunday dinner - beef stew and fougasse

 

I made a darn good stew in my fake Le Creuset pot in the oven, via America's Test Kitchen.

The bread is onion fougasse, from the onion and bacon fougasse recipe from Paul Hollywood's 100 Great Breads book, which I have mentioned here numerous times.  Buy this book!

I initially didn't love the fougasse, as it didn't puff much.  It was flat and crisp and not what I'd imagined.  But it was tasty and it went well well with the stew, so that was good.

I'm done with that book for now, but I'm itching to get back into the kitchen and make some more bread......

Sunday Dinner - Italian Wedding Soup, bread and brownies

My Mom had gone for lunch with some friends and had Italian Wedding Soup 

and really enjoyed it.  She eats a lot of soup, so they bought the canned 

variety and hated it (as I told them they would, but...), so I made some 

for Sunday Dinner for her.  

When we lived in Calgary we used to go to a restaurant that had very good 

IWS, and also gave you free bread when you sat down.  Neither of us can remember 

the name of it, and so I googled IWS and Calgary in case maybe the restaurant 

had been featured in a publication and it would jump out me, but no luck.  But, one from 

Toronto's Metro News showed up in the search, (?) so I went with it.

I never would have put carrots in IWS, but it worked, and it's extra veggies, 

so there you go.  The soup was easy to make and everyone liked it a lot. 

 The only thing I would change would be to make more meatballs.  You need lots.  

Recipe here.

I made a batch (2 loaves) of Cheddar and Onion Soda Bread.  Excellent.

We rounded out the above with some salad and sliced meat.  

All 3 in the titles were new recipes - the bread was cheese and onion soda bread from 

Paul Hollywood's very good book 100 Breads, and the chocolate peanut butter brownies 

were from Ships of the Great Lakes.

Sunday dinner - lasagne, bread and ice cream

Sausage, Cheese and Basil lasagne from The BonAppetit Cookbook was the entree for this dinner.  It was a big hit.  Between using sausage instead of beef, and having pureed basil in with the cheeses, how could it not be?  So good.  Recipe here.  I used Italian sausage instead of hot, and was a bit skimpy on the cheese - we had less in the fridge that I thought, but it was darn near perfect.

The bread was a wonderful loaf from Paul Hollywood's Bread,  a book I picked up for $5 a few months back. I've cooked about 5 recipes out of it and each has been better than the last, with the slight exception of the pizza dough.  It was fine, but I've made better.

This one is called Pain De Campaigne, and is made with rye flour and oregano.  

The Mister picked it out and I wasn't too excited about it, but it was a lovely bread.

The Grandfather was over the other day to spend some time with The Girl while we were 

out with The Boy, and he thumbed through the book and made his own 

list of recipes he wants me to make for him.  What a guy.  

The ice cream was store bought but delicious - Island Farms Coconut Ice Cream.  

We've hit a wall with all the cookies and cakes lately, so something light and refreshing 

and optional that didn't require any effort or cooking sounded perfect to me.

Sunday Dinner - Christmas 2016

Oh what a dinner! I have no good photos, and that's ok. 

We had a vaguely English theme this year - Roast Beef with Yorkshire Puddings, sprouts, potatos, corn, carrots, gravy, and mince tarts for dessert.

The Grandparents sprung for the roast and it was a lovely one.  We mashed 2 recipes together - used the garlic herb butter from here with the cooking method from here.  We slightly overcooked the roast but thank goodness it stayed nice and tender.  

The yorkies and sprouts came from Jamie Oliver's new Christmas cookbook which is such a great book.  I adore it already.  The yorkies were the absolute highlight for me -

 they were sky high and tasted perfect.

Another absolute winner were the mince tarts, recipe from Paul Hollywood's Bread cookbook.  I found the recipe to be both a bit vague and a bit fussy, but the tarts were delicious, 

especially on days two and three.

It was a lot of work and the actual sitting down and eating part seemed to take only a

 few moments before it was time to get up again and start cleaning.  

Oh well, it's worth it to see the happy faces at the table.  

Those of the adults, of course.  

The kids hardly ate a thing.

Sunday Dinner - Gado Gado Salad with bread

I found this recipe in an issue of Yoga Journal, part of an article on fermented foods.  I mentioned it to The Mister and he was on board to make it for Sunday Dinner.

It's similar to Niciose salad, or at least our version was, in the way that we lined up all the individual ingredients in bowls and on platters so everyone could mix their own salad.

The dressing was definitely my favorite part.  Made from kimchi, peanut butter, maple syrup, and some other stuff, it was amazingly delicious.  And the best part was, it wasn't spicy at all, so my mom and the kids could enjoy it too.

Recipe: Gado Gado Salad with Kimchi Nut Dressing

The bread was another good recipe, made from a bread baking book I bought this summer off the discount table at Coles.  It's by Paul Hollywood, one of the judges from The Great British Bake Off.  It was easy and very tasty.  I'm looking forward to baking more from the book this winter.