Pretty Poblanos

A couple years ago I had made a chicken enchilada recipe from an issue of Cooking Light.  This recipe called for a green chili sauce, made with anaheims.  But really, any mildy hot green chili will work just fine.  So this time, I’m used all of my little poblanos to make this delicious sauce and used it for beef enchiladas.  I made a double recipe of the sauce because it should freeze nicely so I can use it again for some other delectable Mexican cooking experiment.

You start by roasting the poblanos.  I use the broiler, but however you like to do it is just fine.  Roast them, then stick them in a bowl covered in foil or plastic and let them sit in their own steam for a while so the skins loosen.  Remove the skins, tops and the bulk of the seeds.

Roasted Poblanos

The sauce is made of the usual suspect.  Peppers, onions, garlic, some spices and chicken stock.

Roasted Chile Sauce

While the sauce is coming together, or if you’re not into multitasking, after the sauce is done, cook up the beef mixture.

Beef Mixture

Because I was up to my elbows in beef and sauce, I didn’t get any photos of the assembly process.  You know how it goes though.  Coat the tortilla with sauce (the poblano chile sauce in this case), spoon in about 3 tbsp of the beef mixture, then roll and place seem side down in the dish.  End it with the cheese.  Every enchilada needs a gooey cheese coating.

Assembled Enchiladas

These were pretty good overall.  Need some added spiciness and I would switch out the cheddar for monteray jack.  In all honesty, I wanted to use jack cheese, but I forgot to buy it at the store, and I had a block of cheddar on hand.  What can I say, laziness is the mother of invention…or something like that.

I’m debating weather or not to add a photo of a serving of these.  What the heck.  It looks like its pre-digested, as do all of my enchiladas.  But that’s normal right?  My helpful hubby suggested that it would look classier if I put a piece of parsley on top.  He’s so smart, too bad we have no parsley on hand.  BLAST!

Forgive them, they know not how they look

Recipe for the sauce and the enchiladas after the break.

Roasted Poblano Chile Sauce (adapted from Cooking Light)

6  Poblano chiles

1  tbsp  canola oil

2  cups  chopped onion

2  garlic cloves, minced

1  tbsp  all-purpose flour

1  tsp ground coriander

1/2  tsp  salt

12 oz fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth

1 tbsp honey

Preheat Broiler.  Place chiles on a foil-lined baking sheet; broil 7 minutes on each side, until they are slightly charred and blistery looking. Place in a large bowl and seal tightly with plastic wrap or foil. Let stand 5-10 minutes. Peel and discard skins. Remove and discard seeds and tops, they should pull right out.  Chop chiles to measure 3/4 cup.

Heat canola oil in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Sauté onion in oil for 5 minutes or until tender. Add garlic and sauté for 1 minute. Stir in flour; cook 1 minute. Add the remaining ingredients and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, simmer 15 minutes allowing the mixture to reduce, stirring occasionally. Using an immersion blender, blend the mixture until smooth (Alternatively, transfer chile mixture to a blender in batches and blend until smooth.  Be sure to place a kitchen towel over the blender to prevent splattering).  Once blended add the honey and stir to incorporate.  Taste at this point and add additional honey or salt if either is lacking.

Enchilada Ingredients

1 recipe Roasted Poblano Chile Sauce (above)

1.5 pounds ground beef

1 small can diced green chilies, the hot variety if you want more heat (I recommend it)

1 onion, diced

1 clove garlic, minced

3 tsp Adobo spice blend (if you don’t have this, use a mix of coriander and cumin)

2 tsp chili powder

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper (omit if you don’t want the added spice)

Salt and Pepper to taste

1 cup diced tomatoes (canned or fresh), drained of juice

1/4 cup tomato sauce or crushed tomatoes

1 tbsp tomato paste

1 ½ cup shredded cheese, Monteray Jack recommended (sharp cheddar, or colby jack are fine too)

corn tortillas (I used 11 6-in tortillas)

In a large skillet, sauté beef and diced onion, once cooked, drain excess fat from the beef.  Add the garlic, green chilies spices, salt and pepper.  Stir and cook until fully incorporated.  Add diced tomatoes, tomato sauce and tomato paste.  Cook for 10 minutes on medium-low heat until the liquids have reduced.

To assemble:

Coat each tortilla in the roasted poblano chili sauce.  Add ~3 tbsp of the beef mixture.  Roll up and place seam side down in a 9×13 baking dish.  Continue until the beef is used up.  Pour the remaining poblano sauce down over the enchiladas in the baking dish.  Distribute the shredded cheese evenly over the top of the enchiladas.

Bake at 350F for 25 minutes.  Cool for 5-10 minutes before serving.

A Little Slice of Heaven

Grasshopper pie has long been my favorite.  In our family, we weren’t big on cakes.  When our birthdays rolled around, the questions wasn’t what Disney character do you want on your birthday cake, the question was – What kind of pie do you want mom to make?  And my answer was usually – Grasshopper Pie Please!!!  No matter that its February and this is a frozen pie.  No matter that my birthday is on Valentine’s Day and this color palette fits St. Patrick’s day with much greater accuracy.  No matter, I LOVE grasshopper pie!

For years I was afraid to make this pie by myself.  I don’t know why, turns out its actually extremely simple.  Only one measuring spoon involved and no oven.  That’s my kind of pie for a very hot summer day.  The ingredients are easy enough to assemble:

Ingredients - Sweet and Delicious!

The amount of Oreos – oops, I mean “chocolate sandwhich cookie” – and marshmallows are actually counted out instead of measured by volume.  24 of each. Exactly 24 – that’s what mom’s recipe card says, and that’s gospel to me.  The other ingredients are evaporated canned milk, whipping cream, butter and a couple of Liqueurs.  Now for a note on the Liqueurs:

Mom’s recipe card says Creme de Menthe (easy enough) and Creme de Cacao (not so easy).  I had to buy the bottles this time because as I’ve said, I haven’t made this one solo before.  So the recipe specifically calls for Creme de Cacao, but what I bought at the liquor store is Creme de Cocoa.  Same thing? Probably.  But stupidly, I bought the dark Creme de Cocoa because I thought it was the same thing as the light (or clear) Creme de Cocoa, just in an amber bottle.  Wrong.  So as I was making the pie this morning, I went to measure the Creme de Cocoa and discovered that it was indeed dark brown.  The pie’s beautiful light green color comes from the Creme de Menthe.  Had I gone ahead and added the dark Creme de Cocoa it would have turned out roughly the color of mud.  So I had a little freak out and sent my terribly wonderful husband off to the liquor store to purchase the correct liqueur.  After a few calls back and forth, some of them involving my mom, we decided that the clear Creme de Cocoa is probably the same thing as Creme de Cacao.  Jeez that was an ordeal!  And 13 wasted dollars later, we have an extra bottle of liqueur we will probably never use.  Anyone have any brilliant uses for dark Creme de Cocoa?

So in summary – buy Creme de Menthe and clear Creme de Cocoa (Cacao).

Creme de WHAT??

Now that that is all sorted out, go ahead and make the crust.  Life is so easy with a food processor, but lacking that, you may certainly bash the cookies up with a rolling pin and stir in the butter.  Once the cookies and butter are mooshed up, press them into a 9″ pie dish.

Chocolate Cookie Crust

Once that is done, move on to the filling.  In a saucepan over low heat, melt the marshmallows with the canned milk, stirring pretty much constantly.

Melty Marshmallows

Once that is melty and smooth, set it aside, off the heat, and allow to cool.  While that’s cooling, get your whipping cream whipped up until firm, but not stiff.  And not butter either…don’t walk away from the mixer!

When the marshmallow mixture is cooled (but probably still slightly warm), add the liqueurs.  Stir to incorporate.

Minty Swirls

Then fold in the whipped cream:

Finishing the Filling

Now just pour it into the pie crust and throw – I mean, carefully place, the pie in the freezer.  Freeze for a few hours before serving.

Pie Pre-Freeze

Did anyone notice the frozen shredded zucchini lording over it in the freezer?

After its frozen, just slice it up and enjoy!

Recipe after the jump.

Grasshopper Pie – from Mom

24 chocolate creme-filled cookies (aka Oreos)
1/4 cup butter, melted
24 large marshmallows
8 oz canned evaporated milk
2 Tbsp Creme de Menthe
2 Tbsp Creme de Cacao
8 oz heavy whipping cream

To make the crust, combine the cookies and melted butter in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a metal blade.  Process until it is the texture of wet sand.  Alternatively, crush the cookies in a zip-top bag with a rolling pin.  Stir to combine with the melted butter.

Press the cookie/butter mixture into a 9 inch pie dish.

In a saucepan (preferably a non-stick pan), combine the canned milk and marshmallows.  Over low to medium-low heat, stirring constantly, slowly melt the marshmallows.  Once the marshmallows are completely melted into the milk, remove them from the heat, set aside and allow to cool.

While the marshmallow mixture is cooling, whip the heavy whipping cream using a mixer until it is firm, but not stiff.

Once the marshmallow mixture is cooled (but possibly still slightly warm), add the Creme de Menthe and Creme de Cacao.  Then, gently fold in the whipped cream (do not whisk or stir).

Pour the finished filling into the pie crust.  Place in the freezer for at least 2-3 hours.

I’ve found it very nice to discuss my gardening with my Grandma.  She has decades of knowledge and used to keep a beautiful, huge garden.  I have very fond memories of picking strawberries and foraging for tomatoes in that garden.  Its partly what inspired me to convert part of my own back yard into a garden.  I love bringing in the harvest.

But then there are the zucchinis.  I planed 6 zucchini plants – so I know it is totally my own fault.  But I only bought 2 $1.99 containers of seedlings with 3 plants apiece.  I planted all of them thinking for sure that at least 2 or 3 would die.  I was so very, very wrong.  Now I have 6 healthy, producing zucchini plants, and that’s about 5 too many.

The beginnings...healthy vegetables

So this recipe that my Grandma sent me could have had more perfect timing.  And just check out how awesome this recipe card is.  Why can’t you find these anymore?  I LOVE that my grandma knew that I’d be inundated with zucchini and took the time to write out this recipe and mail it to me.

Recipe Card

This recipe is good old 1950’s style cooking.  The original recipe actually calls for butter or “olio”.  Love it.  So anyway, by 1950’s style cooking, I mean that it pays absolutely no heed to healthiness.  It is not good for you, it manages to pack in about 17 forms of fat and carbs in a 3 quart casserole dish.  Somehow, even though it is chalk full of vegetables, you could put it on a plate alongside fettuccine alfredo and a twinkie, and it probably wouldn’t be the healthiest item on the plate.

The other main ingredients

That all being said, it is quite tasty, in that creamy-comfort-food kind of way.  I’d recommend it alongside a nice grilled or sauteed chicken breast or pork cutlet.  Something lean.  And its most redeeming feature is that is uses up 6 WHOLE CUPS of zucchini.  That’s like 5 zucchini people.  That’s at least a DENT in the pile.

The stuffing topped creamy goodness

So yea, not to healthy, but yummy – Thanks Grandma!

Zucchini Casserole

Happy Zucchini Season!!  Recipe after the jump.

Grandma’s Zucchini Casserole

6 cups shredded zucchini
1 cup shredded carrot
1/2 cup diced onion
1/2 cup diced celery (I omitted this…I don’t like celery)
1 cup sour cream
1 can Cream of _____ Soup (I used Cream of Chicken, you can use cream of Celery, Mushroom, whatever)
1 cup shredded mild cheese (I used colby-jack)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground pepper
1/4 tsp cayenne papper (my addition, it added just the perfect amount of warmth)
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 cup butter (I used slightly less, 6 Tbsp plus ~1/2 cup chicken stock)
~8 oz Herbed Stuffing bread cubes

Prepare the vegetables.  Parboil the vegetables – place the shredded and diced vegetables in a large pot with about 2-3 cups of water.  Bring to a boil and cook for about 5 minutes until they are cooked but still slightly crisp.  Drain in a colander.  Meanwhile combine the soup, sour cream, cheese and spices in a large mixing bowl.  Add the cooked and drained vegetables and stir to combine thoroughly.

In a medium saucepan, melt the butter, then add the stuffing cubes.  Coat with the butter, then add the chicken stock if you are using that option.  Stir and cook a bit until the cubes are coated and slightly softened.

Place the vegetable mixture in a greased 3 quart casserole dish.  Top with the stuffing bread cubes.  Bake at 350F for ~30 minutes, or until the stuffing is browned and crips adn the casserole is warmed through.

Allow to cool for a few minutes before serving.

]]> http://doctordomestic.com/2009/07/22/grandmas-recipe-to-fight-the-zucchini/feed/ 3 http://doctordomestic.com/2009/07/19/im-back-and-so-are-the-zucchini/ http://doctordomestic.com/2009/07/19/im-back-and-so-are-the-zucchini/#comments Mon, 20 Jul 2009 01:35:08 +0000 Becky http://doctordomestic.com/?p=719

What have you been doing??? Have you forgotten about us?

I was having so much fun with my blog.  Photos and cooking and gardening…and then….this summer happened.  I haven’t forgotten my blog exists, I have just been working about 80+ hours a week at 2 jobs and unfortunately, because the blog doesn’t pay the bills, it got put on the back burner, so to speak.

Besides working, I have been tending to my garden in all of my spare time.  It needs tending because it has gone absolutely crazy.  I need to do a photoshoot but I did want to share the following exhibit with you all.

The zucchini that took over the world

I went out tonight (as I have been doing every other night) and found this lurking in the depths of the garden.  I think I have found the solution for world hunger.  Plant hundreds of zucchini plants, then just ignore them for a while, and then THESE will appear and feed a village apiece.  And don’t worry, at no point did my food make contact with the food, its just there for scaling purposes.  And also for comparison purposes, it is smaller than my calf, bigger than my arm and it weighs about as much as a newborn.

This zucchini is just the tip of the iceberg.  I harvest about 4 every other day of varying sizes.  I have run through all of my go-to zucchini recipes at least 10 times and we have zucchini bread coming out of our ears.  My grandma sent me a recipe for a casserole that requires 6 cups of shredded zucchini.  That might use up about a third of this monster.  Anyone need a batch of zucchini casserole topped with zucchini bread and zucchini sprinkles?

Funky Whisks

I’m a lucky girl, I was given the mama and the baby:

Whisks

My second attempt at sourdough bread is the simplest of breads: French Sourdough.  It has 4 ingredients.  4.  Four.  Just one more than 3:  Flour, Water, Salt and Sourdough starter.  How do 4 simple ingredients come together to produce something so very wonderful? Its a culinary miracle.

It starts as all sourdoughs do, with the culture refresh.  Since my attempt at cinnamon-nut bread, I have learned some things…namely that I did the refresh exactly WRONG the last time.  After an informative chat with mom and dad, I now know how to do it right:

Sourdough Refresh:

1. Transfer culture from the storage container to a large mixing bowl.
2.  Add 1 1/4 cups water to the culture, and just enough flour to bring it to a thick pancake-batter consistency.  Air on the light side with the flour first, then add flour as needed while whisking.
3.  When it is thoroughly mixed, let it sit for 1 hour on the counter.
4.  After the hour, remove the amount of culture needed for the recipe  (2 cups here).  Put the rest back in the washed and dried storage container.

Sourdough Refresh

Before the first 12 hour proof, 1 cup of flour and 1/4 cup of water are added and mixed in.

Then after the 12 hour proof, and before the 8 hour proof add 1 cup of flour and 1/4 cup of water.  That’s fairly easy to remember.

First and Second Proofs

After the 2nd proofing step, a lot of bubbles have been introduced by our friendly microbes.  Now its time to add the rest of the ingredients and mix/knead it all together.  At this point, another addition of flour, plus the rest of the water and salt (which is dissolved in the water) are added to the dough in your mixer.  Once again I’ll remind you, HOLD ON TO YOUR MIXER.  Unless you have one of those mixers that sits on the floor and that you can make enough cookies for 400 teenagers in, your mixer will lurch along the counter as it mixes the dough.

Mix in about 1 1/2 cups of flour and the remaining 3/4 cup of water with 1 1/2 tsp of salt dissolved into it.  Mix on low for 2.5 minutes to incorporate the new ingredients.  At this stage, if the dough is to wet and gummy, add more flour.  If you don’t add enough flour, it’ll come out of your mixer looking like paste and will stick to your hands in a way you can’t even imagine.

The CLAW

And by the way, I’m just slightly OCD about having my hands clean so this was more than a little bit torturous!  Needless to say, I did not add enough flour in the mixer.  A problem to be fixed next time!  After another 8 minutes mixing on high in your mixer, transfer to a floured work surface.  At this stage, knead in enough additional flour (likely more than another cup) so the dough is smooth, firm and not sticky.  Using a bench scraper is the key here.  When it starts to stick, just work the scraper under it, then reflour the surface.

Kneading the Dough

The recipe makes enough for 2 loaves, so split it in half and weigh each half on a kitchen scale to ensure an even split.  Once you have 2 even halves, roll around to make a couple of nice loaves.  Put them into lightly oiled bread loaf pans and to ensure even rising and a good shape, push the dough into all the corners of the pan with your knuckes.  Set a kitchen towel over them and let them rise for 2-4 hours, or until they’re 1-2 inches above the top of the pan.

And before you bake them, brush the tops with a little oil to promote nice browning and give them a good slash across the tops.  One good slash right down the middle.

Cook at 375F for 20 minutes, then put foil over the top to prevent the top from getting to dark.  At this time, insert a probe thermometer so you can take them out RIGHT WHEN THEY HIT 203F.  I have been told this temperature many times.  Apparently my bread will explode if the temperature is off either way.

4 simple ingredients - 1 amazing result

But with results like these, who’s to question it?

Yummy

]]> http://doctordomestic.com/2009/06/21/sourdough-2-simple-french-bread/feed/ 3 http://doctordomestic.com/2009/06/17/it-doesnt-get-any-fresher-than-this/ http://doctordomestic.com/2009/06/17/it-doesnt-get-any-fresher-than-this/#comments Thu, 18 Jun 2009 01:59:08 +0000 Becky http://doctordomestic.com/?p=700 Exhibit A

Exhibit B

Exhibits C and D

And Finally…

Life is good.

OH HAI!!! I'm gonna kill you, m'kay??

These little jerks have been wreaking absolute havoc on my broccoli lately!  I found 6 just today, in addition to several over the past few days. The are eating off the leaves of my broccoli plants little by little.  If you’re having problems with something eating your broccoli, cauliflower, or cabbage, this guy might be your culprit. If you don’t find the caterpillars themselves, their poop on the leaves is always a good indication of their presence:

Caterpillar Poop

I think that these guys are “cabbage loopers”, although they don’t look exactly like the Wikipedia picture.  Mine are fuzzier and softer, I think they are putting up a defense of “cuteness”…well, I’m not falling for it.  As far as I’m concerned, they’re bird food.

No wonder this particular broccoli plant has been so slow to produce anything, its been fighting off these little jerks for weeks probably.

baby broccoli head

And not only are my broccoli plants under attack, I’ve been finding a lot of tomatoes that have this general appearance:

holy tomatoes

I’m pretty sure I have some sort of caterpillar eating my tomatoes too.

So what’s a gardener to do??  Well, I read up in my Organic Gardener’s Handbook of Natural Insect and Disease Control about my issues.  This book is cool because you can look up your issues by plant type, and then by what problem your plant is having.  You can also look up pest types.

I didn’t set out to specifically do organic gardening.  We had something eating our tomatillo leaves for a while (still actually) and we employed some Sevin spray which basically kills anything smaller than a rat.  Before my husband applied this stuff, he read the warnings on the back.   They basically request that you don a Hazmat suit before spraying the stuff.  All exposed skin should be covered, eyes protected, etc.  Plus, you can’t harvest the vegetables from those plants for anywhere from 3 days to 2 weeks.  Toxic much?  Yea, no thanks.  I’d rather not have to worry about poisoning myself with my own home-grown vegetables.

So my organic gardener’s book gave me the solution:  B_t_k.  I’m writing it like that so I get fewer people on this site looking for cool info on serial killers.  B_t_k stands for Bacillus thuringiensis, var. kurstaki.  Its a type of bacteria!  God I love biology!  Basically, the B_t_k bugs live harmlessly in your garden (you can harvest on the day of spraying) and leaves crystals behind on the leaves that the caterpillars ingest and then THEY DIE.  Go bacteria!!!!

Better living through microbiology, I just love it! I bought some in a slurry called Thuricide, purchased at our local garden store, diluted it in water, then sprayed it using a pressure sprayer all over our broccoli and tomato plants.

I will of course report back on the effectiveness of the B_t_k.  I’m sure that once I get rid of the caterpillars there will be something else to fill the niche.  The ongoing battle for supremacy of the garden!

All of my tomato plants have bunches of green tomatoes, I just don’t know when the red will start showing through!  I hope its soon, my patience for home grown tomatoes is growing a bit weary!

The Patio Tomatoes

Jellybean Tomatoes

And the Roma tomatoes…ah the Romas.  They are absolute beasts!  I spent an hour tonight re-caging and re-staking them.  They’re always outgrowing their support structures!

Marzano Roma Tomatoes

The Tomatillo plants are turning into elm trees…is that normal?  I’ve had to put several stakes around them to prop their giant branches up.

Tomatillos

And moving over to the crawlers…

The butternut squash is positioning itself to take over the entire garden.  Its spreading in and among the tomatoes and tomatillos, they’ve all but overgrown the eggplant and okra.  They are tactical little guys and I have the feeling I’d better watch my back otherwise they might try to steal my car.

Butternut Squash

The cucumbers have finally been trained to crawl up the trellis, fancy as it is.

Cucumbers

The jalapenos are still chugging away:

Jalapenos

And then we turn to the zucchini…oh, the zucchini.  They are absolutely gigantic!  Pretty soon we’ll be up to our eyeballs in zucchini.  Got any good zucchini recipes? Send ‘em my way!  Enjoy the zucchini photos, and I do apologize in advance for any, um, phallic looking photos.  Its just the nature of the beast.

Zucchini plant

And there’s the mid-June garden update.  Our hard work is really paying off in leaps and bounds now!

My First Harvest!

And the winner is…….Broccoli!!

I'm Gonna Eat YOU!!!

After all of our heartache and toil dealing with the bunnies and their lust for our broccoli, it turns out that our broccoli will be the first thing to make it from our garden to our dinner plates.

I’ve had trouble with my broccoli quickly turning from this:

pretty, edible broccoli

To this, in a matter of a day:

Flowering, inedible broccoli

One cannot properly enjoy broccoli once it has gone to flower…duh.  So I got out early this morning, chopped the head off and let it hang out in my fridge until dinner time.

the violence

What shall I do with my bounty?  I certainly know that my favorite way to prepare broccoli is to roast it with a bit of olive oil until it gets a little brown and crusty.  Fabulous.  It seem a bit fancy to eat alongside our sloppy joes, but I don’t care.  It came from our garden and it deserves to be made fancy!

Get in my BELLY!

What a rewarding experience, and there’s just so many more goodies to come!  Its only a matter of days until we’ll have zucchini coming out of our ears.  Rolls up your car windows, the zucchini are coming…

I should perhaps back up a bit.  I guess I haven’t mentioned that my parents (more specifically my dad) has jumped in to the hobby of sourdough bread making.  Yes, a man who at one time couldn’t find the milk in the fridge without the help of his teenage daughter, is making bread from scratch, from cultures he maintains with loving care.  I love the unexpected changes the years can bring.

Its truly amazing I haven’t started doing this culturing thing years ago.  I mean, if there’s one type of cooking that translates from the lab to the kitchen – its culturing microbes!  I have personally maintained cell cultures in the lab for 8+ years.  It has become second nature in my working hours, so I really hope that my mad culturing skills will come home with me after working hours!

OK, enough with the back story, lets get down to some bread making.  I pulled out my sourdough culture, which had been sitting undisturbed in the fridge for the past 2 weeks.  I poured off 2 cups of it for use in this recipe.  With the rest of it, I added water (about 2.5 cups) and flour to bring the culture back to its previous texture.  In case you’re wondering, the texture is roughly that of thick pancake batter.  I transferred the refreshed culture back into my cleaned storage container and put it back into the fridge.  I unfortunately didn’t have a lot of culture left after I removed the 2 cups for the recipe, but I’m hoping the remaining yeast will repopulate the culture.

Refreshing the Culture

To the 2 cups of liquid culture (that’s how it is referred to by the cookbook), I added 1 cup flour and 1/4 cup water.  I whisked those ingredients together and let them proof for 12 hours.  This is your overnight step.

.

Did I mention that this bread takes about 25 hours to make?  Oh yea, it takes about 25 hours to make.

After 12 hours, a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed Dr. Domestic headed into the kitchen to stir in another 1 cup of flour and 1/4 cup of water.  Sound familiar?  This second mixture proofs for 8 more hours.

Second Proofed Culture

And in case you’re wondering, proofing is optimally done at about 70-72F.  This stuff IS specific.  More science than cooking, really.

8 hours later, I mixed in all of the goodies.  The goodies include: Milk (3/4 cup), cinnamon (a LOT of cinnamon – 1/4 cup), raisins (1 cup), finely chopped walnuts (1 cup), sugar (2 T) and salt (1 1/2 tsp).  I combined the goodies with the proofed culture in my KitchenAid Mixer and mixed it up.  I then added 2 cups of flour (in two stages) and mixed on Med-High for about 6 minutes with the dough hook.

This is not the most pleasant stage of the bread-making process.  Your mixer will NOT like this.  It will get hot, and tired, and eventually try to commit suicide by throwing itself off of your counter-top.  Really.  You must stand there and keep it on your counter because that much dough (4+ pounds of it) knocking around your mixer will cause it to walk all over the place.

At some point, my nice floury, smooth bread dough ball turned into a gluey mass.  I don’t know when or why this happened.  But I took this as a hint to start the hand-kneading.  I turned it out onto a counter-top and kneaded in another 1 1/4 cup flour.

Forgive me for lack of good pictures at this step.  I was in a huge hurry and covered head-to-toe in flour.  It was a bit stressful.

And after 8-10 minutes of hand-kneading, when you’re good and sweaty, you’re done.  The dough is then split in two, because this recipe makes TWO LOAVES.  And do yourself a favor and actually weigh the dough so its truly evenly divided.

Roll each piece out separately into rectangles, about the width of your bread loaf pans and 1/2 inch thick.  Spread over one half of a mixture of 2 Tbsp cinnamon and 1/2 cup sugar.  The other half is of course for the other loaf.  Roll up the dough and place it in a loaf pan.

Bread Loaves Before Final Rise

The loaves now proof from anywhere from 2-3 hours in a warm room to longer (5-6 hrs) in a cooler room.  I opted for the longer rise because I went and made social plans for tonight without thinking through the ramifications for my bread loaves.  I called my mom in a panic to make sure I could let them rise longer than 3 hours and she told me it’d be fine.  Yes, I still need motherly reassurances!

Loaves after Final Rise

When we got home tonight, the loaves (which had been in our cold basement) were still a bit flat, so I did the “bouncing” technique for inducing a final rise.  Basically, instead of pre-heating the oven, you put the loaves in a cold oven, then heat it.  This extra heating time apparently helps give the loaves a bit of…well…bounce.  It did seem to help tonight, at least a little.

The loaves were cooked at 375F for 25 minutes, then covered with foil.  They then continued to bake at 375F until they reached an internal temperature of 203F.  Yes. 203F EXACTLY.

Baked Bread

Too bad I somehow can’t transmit the smell of freshly baked cinnamon bread over the internet.  Really too bad.

I turned the loaves out onto a cooling rack, where they sat overnight under a tea-towel.  One unanticipated problem I experienced was that some of the cinnamon sugar kind of melted out and burned to the side of the loaf.  Woops.  Maybe I’ll just use less cinnamon sugar next time.

And as for the final taste and texture?  Taste – good. Texture – a bit dense, not surprising with the sub-optimal conditions I used!

Boy was this one exhausting!

I’m not posting the recipe for this one quite yet because to be completely honest, I was working off of a copy my dad made out of their cookbook, and I didn’t have both pages of the recipe.  Umm, this could explain a few things…  If/When I redo this one, I promise to do a better job and I will post the actual recipe.  You can gather the gist of it from this post.