Zucchini Bread Recipe

By request: A delicious, easy zucchini bread recipe given to me by my sister-in-law (from a friend of hers) that even my vegetable fearing son Ripley loves. What a review!!

2 greased loaf pans
Preheat oven to 325 degrees

Beat:
3 eggs
2 C sugar
2 t vanilla
1 C oil (I use canola)
2 C grated zucchini

Sift:
3 C flour
1 t salt
1 t baking soda
1/2 t baking powder
3 t cinnamon
1/2 C chopped walnuts or pecans (if desired)

Mix the top list with the bottom list gently until blended with a wooden spoon for a tender crumb.
Bake at 325 degrees for 55 minutes - 1 hour, until a toothpick comes out clean and/or the bread begins to pull away from the sides of the pan. Set on a cooling rack in the pans for 10 minutes, then turn the bread onto the cooling racks. Yum!! Eat with butter or strawberry jam! Delish!

Game Night - Date Night

Last night Victor and I scheduled a date night to celebrate Valentine's Day early. We don't go out on Valentine's Day anymore. The restaurants are mobbed, many places have a "fixed" menu - so you can't order your favorite thing - and because of the high volume, the food just isn't as good. We went up to "The Hill" -- which is the Italian District here in Providence. We went to a sheeshier place, Siena -- it wasn't outrageously expensive or anything, it was just hoppin' happenin' and had a mood. The place was packed. Of course I thought to myself, "OK, just where is the recession?" Rhode Island has one of the worst unemployment rates  in the country. Anyway, after dinner Victor and I decided we were better off with the local Italian joint we went to last time, Andino's. Nothing fancy, but everything tastes like it was cooked by your friend's Italian grandmother. (Read about it at the bottom of this post.)

We scheduled our date night for 7pm. Before we went out, we spent some time with the kids. I made homemade pizza using the 5 minute bread recipe that I heard about through Kristi's Blog. I have to say, it really is terrific. Especially for speed. You basically make a vat of bread dough, then pull off what you need that day. The rest of the dough just sits in the fridge for up to 2 weeks, ready to be used. Cool eh? Read about how to do it at Plain Old Kristi. I cooked the pizza at 450 degrees F for about 15 minutes. I had frozen a little bit of marinara left over from pasta, so I used that on the pizza. Yum.

We played an air hockey tournament, and a game of Parcheesi. 

As an aside, yesterday I made blueberry yogurt with honey. Yum. Yum. Yum. I just added about one cup of thawed frozen blueberries and some honey to taste, and stir. Wow was it good. Ripley asked after lunch when he'd be able to have more blueberry yogurt. Tomorrow at breakfast, I told him. 

Whole Wheat Bread Recipe!

Here is my new bread box! Isn't that exciting? Not wanting to use plastic baggies or put my freshly baked bread in the refridgerator, I finally decided to purchase a bread box. This is the largest I could find in this style (ie: not wooden). It's made by WMF which is the same company where I purchased my glass food storage containers through Williams Sonoma. (Unfortunately Williams Sonoma doesn't carry them anymore and I can't find them anywhere -- let me know if anyone has seen them out there ... I'd love to buy more.) Anyway, it is large enough to hold two large loaves of bread. We can polish off two loaves in one week -- and frankly I don't understand going through the effort of making bread for just one loaf. I bake two at a time.

Here is my flour that I purchased for about .54 cents a pound -- for organic whole wheat and french styled white! Wow.

Here is my Whole Wheat bread for the week -- one loaf is already down to the heel. I've made this recipe twice now and it's come out perfectly both times. The recipe is from The King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion which I would have never looked at if it weren't for Rosa's Yummy Yums in Switzerland. She highly recommended it so I checked it out of the library. I've tried two things so far and they have been great. This might be one of those books I will have to splurge on. (I can only renew one more time!) :)

100% Whole Wheat Bread recipe (doubled to make 2 loaves)

(Note: you can make a simple honey whole wheat by eliminating the nuts and seeds. It's wonderful.)

3 C Water

6 T Olive Oil

10 T Honey, Maple Syrup or Molasses (just shy of 2/3 C)

7 C Whole Wheat Flour (36 1/2 oz)

1/2 C Chopped Sunflower Seeds

1/2 C Chopped Walnuts

1 T Salt

1 T Instant Yeast (rapid rise, bread machine) The difference w/ instant yeast is just that it doesn't need to be proofed - activated in warm water first.

In a large mixing bowl, or in the bowl of an electric mixer (this will max out your kitchen aide - even the large one with the crank handle which I have and used ... use your mixer's directions), combine all the ingredients, mixing to form a shaggy dough. Let the dough rest for 20 minutes, which gives the flour a chance to absorb the liquids, then knead it for about 10 minutes, until it is smooth and supple. Note: for the optimal rise, use an electric mixer or bread machine (set on the dough setting). Kneading by hand will make a smaller denser loaf. (this was a big epiphany for me, it does make a huge difference. Otherwise, really work the dough when kneading whole wheat bread by hand.)

Let the dough rise in a greased, covered bowl for 1 hour (mine has needed a lot longer than this in the cool fall weather and 66 degree house -- the dough should be well doubled and very soft to the touch leaveing a little dent where your finger poked it). Dump dough onto counter - cut in half, then make two logs and place them into a lightly greased 8 1/2 x 4 1/2 inch bread pan. Cover the pan and let it rise for about 1 hour, (for me longer) until it has crowened about 2 inches over the rim of the pan.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Bake for 45 minutes, tenting it lightly with aluminum foil for the final 20 minutes. Remove from pan, cool on rack. (I'm finding in my oven I need to bake it for a total of 50 minutes. 25 without foil, 25 with foil.)

Incredible Bread!

I am not a fabulous bread maker. I'm improving and I'm learning. Possibly that is also part of my problem -- trying different techniques all of the time, trying different recipes all of the time -- so, like a bad scientific experiment, I rarely have a "control" scenario. Anyway, the good news is there IS a bread recipe that I have hardly ever failed at. It was given to me at my wedding shower by a close college friend who's mother is Danish and father is an American -- and has spent most of her life traveling back and forth between the two countries. I don't know if it's a Danish recipe -- but the bread sure tastes better to me than typical American fare. The outside is crunchy and the inside in melt-in-your mouth, knock-your-socks-off delicious. Peter Reinhart, eat your heart out. Here it is:

Karen's Homemade Bread

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Makes 2 big tall loaves of bread - use large bread pans.

10 Cups Flour (I used King Arthur Bread Flour)

1/4 oz yeast (1 T) - I used "instant" yeast

4 Cups room temperature water (for instant yeast) or lukewarm for "regular active dry yeast"

1 T salt

1/2 Cup olive oil

Blend 2 cups of flour w/ yeast, then add salt, water, oil -- and rest of flour. Knead the dough (I used a dough hook this time) cover and let rise for 3 hours. (this recipe doesn't call for a second rise in the bowl, but I did one this time -- I've done it both ways, and they are both good) Make 2 loaves out of the dough. Grease bread pan with olive oil -- put loaves into the pans then "pencil" (which basically means drizzle) bread with olive oil. Let rise in pans until they rise up over the lip of the pan. Bake for 1/2 hour in pans, then remove from pans and continue baking right on the oven rack for 3/4 of an hour. Let cool before you taste this delicious bread.

This recipe doesn't have details for the new bread baker, but a great recource to get some basic info is at The Fresh Loaf .

Catching up

Sorry I've been out of touch.

I've been a little down about the seemingly endless rain and 10 degrees lower than normal temperatures for the past month. However, I'm very excited about the 65 degree weather that's warming up outside. Thank the Lord. (Today we had to go to skating class ... me dressed in my long down coat. Ugh. Only two more weeks of classes)

I was finally able to catch up with the laundry after a week of strep throat. It was like going on a vacation where you have to play "catch-up" for over a week to recover. Strep throat wasn't quite like a trip to the Bahama's though. Hmph.

Also this week I've been hard at work trying to trouble shoot my bread baking. I made the Raisin Oatmeal Bread again, but it rose poorly. Totally demoralized I went to The Fresh Loaf website and asked for help in the "forum". (click that link to get to the conversation) This is a place where you can pose questions / problems regarding bread baking and loads of people email you back with suggestions and information. Fabulous. I was so thankful for the help of hard core bread bakers! One man who helped me out a great deal was Mike from Sourdough Home. I'm giving his site a plug because he was so helpful and generous with his time. He has a lot of helpful bread baking tips on his site as well. I have never tried to make sourdough bread, but I think I'll give it a try. Doesn't it sound good? Homemade Sourdough Bread?? MMmmmmm. Anyway, I'm excited to report that yesterday I produced two beautiful whole wheat loaves from The Moosewood Restaurant cookbook. Yum. I'll list that recipe later -- as I want to get outside and enjoy the weather.

My seedlings are coming along nicely. I have peppers, tomatoes, okra, broccoli, broccoli rabe, leeks, kale, herbs planted indoors. And cold weather peas, lettuce and spinach planted outside. Unfortunately the guy who's going to help us enlarge my garden space and plant my fruit trees came down with pneumonia and is set back two weeks. So, sadly I'm on hold outdoors. But two weeks will pass by quickly. More on that later too ... as I'm leaving you know to fold laundry and then to GO OUTSIDE!! Yipee!!

Bread Baking, part two

Ok, I feel better. The standard "Active Dry Yeast" should be proofed in liquid between 100 and 110 degrees. Phew! I'm not completely out to lunch. By the way, I need to tell you again, the Oatmeal Raisin Bread is INCREDIBLE! See the post below to get to the link to the recipe. Yumola.

Bread Baking

Like my experience with Green Tea I feel I'm the last to know some crucial information regarding bread baking. Regarding "rapid rise yeast" or "instant yeast" (I haven't researched regular "active dry yeast" yet because I'm currently out of it) ... this "instant yeast" is exclusively used in Peter Reinheart's thorough books about bread, and I see it frequently on a fabulous website for bread bakers www.thefreshloaf.com . Well, typically a recipe will indicate that "lukewarm" water should be used at some point to activate the yeast. I have always read in recipe books that the temperature of the water should be between 105 and 115 degrees -- you don't want it too hot or you could kill the yeast, you don't want it too cool or it wont activate the yeast. When my bread wasn't rising nicely I tried water closer to the 105 side of the scale -- thinking maybe I was killing the yeast. Well, I just happened to read the label on the "Fleischmann's BreadMachine / RapidRise Yeast" today. It said that some liquid (be it milk or water or a combo) should be mixed with the yeast at some point that is between 120 to 130 degrees!!! Good grief. So, of course, when making Oatmeal Raisin Bread today I heated my "liquid" to the correct temperature and don't you know my bread rose beautifully! Wow. Lesson learned. I feel like a turkey. I'm going to check the regular active dry yeast package tomorrow to see if the same applies to that. Anyway ... problem solved. PS - the Oatmeal Raisin Bread is FABULOUS! If you bake bread ... try it. (see link above) Enjoy!