Chocolate cherry muffins

I had trouble choosing whether or not these would be chocolate cherry muffins or cherry chocolate muffins, but since two kinds of chocolate are in these - Mr. Chocolate gets first billing.

For these bad mama jammas you may omit the sherry and still get good results although it does boost the cherry into a more complex, lovely realm with it added.  Really though, who has sherry unless you are a nerd?  Imagine a neon arrow pointing in my direction and on it, it might say "I know you are, but what am I?".  After all, I spend my time drooling while recalling recipes (not a joke, I've had a mishap or two) and waltzing aimlessly into SALT stores (also not a joke, stores that carry ALL MANNER OF SALTS!) so sherry you'd think would have been on my shelf long ago, but nope - I bought it last week because I wanted to see what it was about and then tried it in a couple of recipes.  This one yielded the most pleasing results.

I once tried these muffins with dried cherries and I must say being exhausted and working with both baking cocoa and dried fruit is a terrible idea.  Doing so practically guarantees your food will be careless (as I was) and the results even tasted careless.  IF you choose to use dried cherries, I recommend using either a tiny bit of hot water to plump them up (heat water... just enough for cherries to sit in while putting together other ingredients) OR you can use lightly-heated oil and put them into that.  I didn't use any of those methods for these muffins. I used frozen cherries which I had picked from my soon to be mother-in-law's cherry trees last summer.

1 and 1/2 Cup Whole Wheat flour (I use Bob's red mill organic ww)
1 TBSP cinnamon (cassia is fine)
2 TBSP + 1 tsp baking cocoa powder (I use Equal Exchange)
shallow 1/2 cup of chocolate chips (I used Sunspire semi-sweet you can use Dagoba Dark is you prefer)
1 cup - heaping cup of cherries (if frozen set them in a low dish and add sherry to the dish over the top of them, let this sit while you work on the rest of the batter and come back to them)
3 TBSP rosso {the red}Martini Rossi sherry for the cherries (you wont become an alcoholic from baking with alcohol it bakes OUT and leaves just the wonderful notes and characters that are in it minus the inebriation, you'd have an easier time getting drunk from cough syrup than raw muffin batter) You can use cherry based wine instead - if you know of any that treat you well.
1/2 cup not packed but heaping light brown sugar
1/2 cup whichever favorite sugar (I used vegan sugar, you can use evaporated cane, raw or natural)
3 eggs
3/4 cup olive oil
350 for 20-24 minutes

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  If using fresh or frozen cherries put them into a shallow bowl and cover with (in this order) sherry, sugars, 3 eggs pre-beaten and leave to mingle on its own while you prep the rest.  In a mixing bowl, put your flour, cinnamon, baking soda, salt, baking cocoa and chocolate chips, and finger blend.  Back to the cherries... mix these with a little tossing and add 3/4 cup olive oil and spatula scrape this into your flour and blend well until everything makes a smooth rich cinnamon chocolate color.  I use a 1/4 cup scoop to scoop batter into paper lined muffin tins and this made 18 average sized muffins.

20-24 minutes until done.  In my electric oven (I miss the gas stove!) in Portland, Oregon it takes 22 minutes to perfection. For those of you in the Alps, I don't know what it takes so just poke it early and eat it when it is perfect!

Oh my!

Brands, batches and consistency

Bonne Maman... doing it right!

One of the most disheartening things about trying to greatly reduce MSG and related excitotoxins from your diet is when something agrees with you just fine one time and not the next.  It's one of the things that starts to make you wonder if feeling good or bad after a meal is psychosomatic.  Well, there are a few things that make this very challenging, which I'll go through in a moment.  I will also detail some brands that we've had pretty good luck with.

First, let's talk about consistency.  Virtually all food manufacturers rely on a large number of sources.  The same is true of your local market.  Have you noticed how the veggies one week come from California, and Mexico the next?   Even individual brands have multiple sources that can change depending on a number of factors including price, weather, and competing purchasers.  If Farm A runs out of something, the supermarket or food manufacturer needs to have Farm B-G already lined up.  And, to make things even more complicated, Farm A may actually be a collective of farms and not just one!

So, with multiple suppliers in place, consistency becomes nearly impossible.  But, what does consistency really mean?  You'd think a red pepper one place would be the same as another, especially if organic, right?  Well, this is not the case, especially where regional differences are in play.  You see every area, every farm has its own unique challenges in terms of climate, pests, rainfall, and so on.  There's also the experience and preference of the farmers themselves.  Some prefer to use no sprays at all, some use organic sprays, and some mix both techniques depending on the time of year.  All of these circumstances can have a pepper be fine one week and not the next.  While it is true that organic sprays are generally healthier than non-organic sprays, they often have a much higher MSG/excitoxic content.  Organic sprays can (and do) employ MSG and broken down protein as a binder agent.  Unfortunately, it's incredibly hard to wash binder agents and waxes off of produce.  Also, organic fertilizers (like fish emulsion as one example) leach into root vegetables, and some other vegetables as well.  The net effect is a reaction, regardless of it being organic.  So, now you can see why consistency is really an illusion unless you know the people who grow your food on a first name basis -- and this can only happen if you shop at a farmer's market for most/all of your produce.  It was at this point we thought - Gardening doesn't sound as daunting as it once did.

 the Portland farmer's market

So, for those who don't have this option (most of us), we have to rely on brands that are as consistent as they can be.  This requires the company's commitment to buying from a select group of suppliers, and not changing ingredients regularly.  These are most often small companies that have individual relationships with their suppliers much like we all shhttp://www.bobsredmill.com/ould with those who grow and produce our food.

Now, there are two other important factors about selecting products that you should know.  First, companies are constantly shifting their ingredients to improve their sales and profit margins.  This has been seen in the greatest way in the shift from real sugar to corn syrup.  When a company changes their ingredients, they have 6 months to change the labels under the law.   It also appears that this law is not regularly or consistently enforced.  So, the end result (and probably the most maddening of all) is you do fine with something one week and not the next, but the ingredients on the label remain exactly the same.  You are only vindicated later when you pick up the same product and the label has changed.  Were it not for this happening several times, I might have thought I was crazy.

This leads to another important point -- TRUST YOUR INTUITION!  When you eat a product, the company has absolutely no concern or allegiance to you other than their obligation to list the ingredients and nutritional value.  Even small companies get regularly bought by giant corporations.  Like Burt's Bees is now CLOROX. Gross, oh, and they've added soy protein (essentially broken proteins with the same negative effects as MSG) to their ingredients since the purchase. They are in it to make money and in rare cases they use that money for good.   So, you can only rely on your own body to let you know if what you are eating is good for you.  The terrible thing is we are conditioned through advertising, the media, our friends and even the government to blindly trust that what we are eating is safe.  This leads to an inevitable clash between what your body is telling you, and what your mind is trying to rationalize.  Making the matter even worse is when you have spent a lot of time cooking and realize after it is done you've somehow used an ingredient that is bad.  This means you either throw away your hard work, or you eat it and suffer the consequences -- something I cannot bring myself to do anymore because of how awful I feel as a result.   It's always easier to check things out thoroughly at the beginning of the cooking process.

One side note I have found.  When cooking, if you get red in the face or feel "flushy" this can be a sign that what you are cooking has MSG in it.   I am no scientist, but when MSG-laden steam hits me, I can feel it.  In fact, going into a restaurant that uses it extensively gives me a major headache.  If you catch trouble during the cooking process, it's an easier burden to bear than once the entire dish/meal is done.

So, in my experience, there are a few brands that seem fairly consistent.  They are in no particular order:

Bob's Red Mill flours (make sure they are not enriched or contain malted barley or corn starch!), yeast and corn meal/corn flour.  The white unbleached is enriched, the ORGANIC white unbleached is not.
King Arthur flours (same deal regarding enriched/malted barley usually "bread flour" is the culprit along with white all-purpose so check labels!)
Hodgson Mills flour (do I have to say it again?)
Lundberg Farms rice (yep, watch out for enrichment in rice too...)
Kerry Gold butter and cheddar (the unsalted is cultured, all cultured butter is bad for you)
Laura Chenel's Chevre goat cheese
Simply Organic pure vanilla extract only
Eden Organic brown mustard, crushed tomatoes and diced tomatoes (not the pasta sauce, or any other kind of sauce)
BioNature strained tomatoes
Coombs organic Maple syrup
Organic Adriatic fig spread it is Croatian and delicious.
Bonne Maman preserves (they have citric acid, but seem OK as the pectin is fruit not corn {yet?})
Humane Harvest eggs (during the winter can be more problematic due to the chickens eating soy)
Eggs - are best obtained locally and by making sure the farm you get them from feeds the chickens no corn or soy.  Cheaper usually too than the store bought.
Stahlbush Island Farms
Whole Foods Market 365 Brand organic whole wheat pasta
John McCann's steel cut oats
Fleishmann's yeast (this and Bob's are the only ones we don't react to)
Dagoba Choco-drops (Dark chocolate always, as milk chocolate has broken milk protein/caseine)
Sunspire Organic Chocolate Chips (semi-sweet)
French Meadow Bakery - European sourdough rye as some seeded breads can cause issues.
Sunshine Dairy (they don't use flash pasteurization, which while sounding like the future actually makes the protein more unstable, and this is what a majority of organic milk producers do, nor does Sunshine use rBGH)

Stahlbush Island Farms is a 2200 acre farm near Corvallis, Oregon doing it right

We will update these, as well as adding our favorite farms from Local Harvest.  remember that these foods are like "fast foods" when you can't call on things you have preserved, grown yourself or from farms you have a relationship with.

Cabbage wraps

 

Just noticed the name on the pan- not the best name they could have come up with.

Oh man,  you know what's tasty?  Feta.
So I have this thing for foods wrapped in vegetables... MEALS wrapped in vegetables even.  Lettuces instead of tortillas or cabbage instead of pita or???  You get the idea.  These can be made vegan by using extra apple and leaving out the cheese and serving with a salad instead of cornbread.

These are made with:

• Cabbage leaves whole
• 1 (cup after cooking) basmati rice
• 1 small potato cubed
• 1 small onion minced
• 1 small red pepper minced
• 1/2 cup ground meat or 1 cup mushrooms either - or
• 6-10 basil leaves cut chiffonade
• pinch salt and pepper
• 1 TBSP olive oil
• feta
• granny smith apple

For these little guys I wash my rice with a hot water rinse several times until the water is clear and not milky.  Cook rice and set aside with lid on.  In a skillet put minced peppers and minced onions into 1 TBSP  olive oil and cook until cellophane/translucent and meat (I used ground turkey) and brown. If you are making this with mushrooms I recommend cooking those separately and reserving the mushroom juice for either a gravy or veggie stock. Once everything is cooked set aside. Cook cubed potato until soft, then drain.

In a bowl combine 2 parts rice to your 1 potato and mush with a fork to break up the potato and work into the rice.  Then add pepper, and salt. Stir in your meat or mushroom and basil ribbons.

Now take the biggest leaves of cabbage and separate them from the head rinse them and be careful not to rip them.  Use a large pot and fill with just enough water that you can dip your cabbage leaves. Once the water is hot use tongs and dunk your leaves a couple at a time until just supple enough - not completely flimsy. Set these aside on a plate or clean surface, repeat until through all your leaves you wish to fill.

Then lay out your leaves.  Shake out the leaves to rid of water. With the curl in the leaf facing you looking like a bowl and the hard end closest to you. On the hard end put a slice of apple, a slice of feta, and a fat spoonful of prepared rice on top roll using your hands to tuck filling and slowly the leaf sides in continue to roll until the curled end cups the wrapped filling completely.  Lay your completed bounty on a lightly oiled baking sheet.

Pepper cornbread is made with:

• 2/3 C Fine ground corn flour
• 2/3 C Stone ground corn flour
• 2/3 C lightly coarse corn flour
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 C sugar
• 1 pinch salt
• 1/2 C butter
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 - 2/3 C half and half ( don't worry about fat... share it! )*
• 1 small red pepper minced
• 1 jalapeno minced

For cornbread preheat oven to 375.  Butter a casserole dish, sides as well.  Put flours, salt, and baking soda together and finger sift together.  Once butter is softened a bit pour sugar into it and beat until fluffy and well blended then add eggs and beat until mixed, it is alright if it looks a little lumpy.  Pour flour mix into butter mix and blend with half of your cream and fold in the peppers then if dry add the other half. * Now you CAN cut back the cream if you wish but I would NOT recommend another milk.  And worse if it is a milk replacement like soy or rice (watch out for NATURAL FLAVOR).  {coconut milk or water being the best replacement for milk in this recipe} The less fat a milk has the MORE it will break down in cooking and that is the broken protein which is addicting.  You can get wild and try water.  It will be different, but with enough salt and sugar no one will miss it too much.  This cornbread should be done at 20 minutes give it a poke test to see.  If the center is jiggly it will need about 10 minutes more.  If the center comes out a little soft like sticking to a utensil then it will need 5 minutes. As ever... always eat this when it looks best to you!

After bread is about to come out put your tray of cabbage wraps into the oven for not much more than 5-7 minutes. Just long enough to melt the feta a bit and give a nice warmth over all. Serve up!  You can garnish wish a sauce or honey.  

Vegetable stock

Vegetable stock can replace any stock in most recipes.  You can make a more richly flavored stock (the color will let you know, but don't be afraid to taste it) for a beef or sausage dish.  A lighter yield is fine for chicken dishes and for a vegetable dish it is up to your tastes.

All those tough parts of vegetables that get thrown out or into the compost can be used in a stock.  Herb stems, the woody ends of asparagus.  The only things that wont impart much flavor or could water down a stock would be a lot of lettuces, like romaine hearts and stems.  You can add dried herbs to the stock but it is best to not too intensely spice your stock until you know what role it will play in your dish. Be careful with any hot peppers and their seeds, they can add a delightful boost to a stock but they can also make it inedibly hot.  Herbs that will keep it savory are cilantro stems; parsley stems and leaves, celery stems and leaves, thyme sprigs.  Carrots and onions make the best base to the stock and beyond that you can make it your own.  With squash pieces, chard, garlic.

You can roast the vegetable scraps to get a roasty flavor... I usually skip this as it is the caramelization and carbonizing that gives the stock the roasted flavor.  I just do that in the final meal if I want that taste.

Storing up to make a stock:
You can keep a jar, zipper baggie or plastic sealing container in the fridge for tossing in scrap vegetables.  If you don't have a lot of scrap on a daily basis then keep the stock container in the freezer to add to it slowly and then boil at your convenience.  What you make can be frozen, kept in the fridge (for a couple weeks) beyond that it will spoil. The bottom of the refrigerator toward the opposite end of the door is usually the coldest spot.  It is good to keep it frozen in amounts that you'll use it, so freezing it in 1 cup amounts or in icecube trays can help you control the frozen amounts.  Whether you use ice cube trays or muffin tins to get your stock cubes made they should go into a container after to prevent the freezer from flavoring them further!

A stock is a  tremendous way of putting to use the trimmings, stems, onion layers that you may not otherwise use.  Save yourself money, and add flavor to meals.

• olive oil (extra virgin)
• chard stems (save leaves for other meals)
• cabbage heart, brocoli, cauliflower and tomato bits should be used sparingly as they can rule your stock's flavor
• onion
• celery, including some leaves
• even peels from apples, pears can impart a delicate sweetness
• carrots
• green onions,purple onions, chives
• cloves garlic 
• mushroom stems
• beans including the snapped ends
• peas
• potatoes
• peppers
• sprigs fresh parsley and stems (they are lighter in flavor than the leaves)
• cilantro stems (save the leaves for other dishes)
• sprigs fresh thyme
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 quarts water
• peppercorns if the stock is meant for a darker flavor
• smoked dry peppers are excellent for meat dishes which require stock
• pepper seeds if it is meant for a spicy dish or a tortilla soup

Usually you'll want equal parts water to vegetables. 50/50  Or fill up your pot with your veg and make sure the veg is submerged in water.  Strain and deal with as you see fit.  The remaining vegetables are near flavorless if you've boiled them until soft.  They will lack nutrients as well and should be put to compost use I would not recommend making a meal out of them.  I am very cheap.  If it tasted good... I'd do it. However, it does not. 

I don't make meat stocks.  You cannot help but create MSG the old fashioned way when making a meat stock.  Because it is just broken down protein and boiled too long.  The marrow in bones and the skin of birds is what gives the stock its flavor and you can make a good soup without it and without the stomach aches later.  Also you've find gorging happens a lot less with homemade vegetable stock rather than a meat stock or any store-bought stocks.

If you've made a tasty vegetable stock, no one will be the wiser they'll just ask you "How do you do it!?"

Borscht

 This is a squash and tomato borscht.  Easy to make nearly no fat at all (croutons, cheese, olive oil would add fat).  It can be vegan, just leave out egg slices and no cheese.  It can be served cold on a wicked hot day or warm to make a chill go away.

This recipe is for 3 hearty servings, double for more or leftovers.

Soup Base:
2 cups pureed tomatoes
1/2 cup water
1/2 onion
1/4 jalapeno with seeds included
2 minced garlic cloves
1/2 potato cut into little cubes
1 TBSP olive oil
pinch oregano
pinch salt
pinch basil (dry) or add fresh basil leaves in the last minutes before serving
1 small zucchini
1 small yellow squash

*1/3 or more concentrated vegetable stock from your own recipe! (below)

If you are having croutons you'll want to preheat the oven after everything is chopped and the soup is going. After the stock is finished and I'm about to add it to the soup then I bake the croutons at 350 for about 5 minutes on each side with the pan lightly olive oiled and making sure each slice is rubbed in the oil.  Once the croutons are browned and crisp they are done.

For the soup base put all your ingredients into a pot except the squash and zucchini and simmer until potatoes are semi-soft - now is when you add your squash and zucchini then the vegetable stock last and stir together and leave to simmer once potatoes are soft it is done. If your soup seems too thick for you then add a little water... taste and if you wish to extend it further add a little more.

Veggie stock can include a lot of things and is not limited to this list but is what I used for the one tonight.

*stock:
handful rainbow chard stems cut down (you can use the soft leaves in another meal)
handful parsley stems
handful cilantro stems
1/4 purple onion (doesn't need to be purple, whatever is on hand is fine)
handful carrot butts (the orange end before the greens can be used in the stock but the greens tend to not add so much flavor as the hard little stem parts)
1 handful mixed stems from zucchini and squash

To make the stock you add 1-2 cups water to cover some of the vegetables and boil until the broth becomes yellow-amber.  The darker the color the richer the stock. Strain the broth off and toss the stems and butts into the compost. You wont need much broth to add a lot of flavor to a soup. So don't worry if you haven't much after the boil and straining. Also boil just until veggies are starting to get soft, you don't want them to break down to the point of mush that creates the bad stuff.  I like to add my stock to the meal when it is nearly done as it wont need to cook again.  If it is frozen then leave it out to thaw it rather than simmering it down if you can.

I made some hard boiled eggs to serve along with the soup and a sprinkle of parsley and some grated cheddar.  I only regret not eating it with more parsley!  So tasty.

Cranberry Apple Muffins (vegan with simple substitutions)

The base of this muffin can be used for several kinds of muffins just changing the fruit you put in it (Or chocolate and nuts instead of the healthier stuff).  Pumpkin and chocolate chip is a favorite non-fruit muffin.

1 1/2 Cup whole wheat (you can double the wheat in this and not change any of the spicing and get the base for other muffins, Pumpkin I just add more spices and leave it at 1 1/2c ww)
1tsp baking soda
1 pinch salt
1 heaping TBSP cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1 Cup cranberries
1 granny smith peeled and chopped (I sometimes make just cranberry muffins if an apple isn't handy - I'll just make the 1 Cup cranberries a little more heaping!)

3 eggs (you can use applesauce instead or use 1/4 Cup applesauce to replace each egg you remove if you use applesauce you have to decrease the oil by a 1/4 cup - so 3/4 Cup applesauce and 1/4 Cup oil - if replacing all the eggs.)
3/4 Cup - 1 Cup vegan sugar or 1/2 Cup brown sugar plus 1/4 Cup other kind of sugar anything lighter in taste if using brown.  (you can use all light brown and it gives a richer earthier sweet, I do not tightly pack the brown sugar when measuring)  You can easily reduce the sugar by also using less cranberries as they can be REALLY tart.
1/2 Cup olive oil you can add more should your batter be dry, but I like to start out with less.

 

Preheat oven to 350. Okay, so dry stuff (not sugar) in a bowl, wet stuff and sugar in the other bowl.  Beat together wet stuff plus sugar. Pour cranberries into dry bowl... coat.  Pour apple chunks into dry bowl... coat.  Then rubber spatula the wet stuff into it and mix vigorously until all flour is blended into the wet and use a 1/4 cup measuring cup and scoop batter into the muffin tins.  I use unbleached paper liners to keep the muffins super portable and to avoid cleaning anything. Bake for 20-25 minutes.  I almost always use 22 minutes, maybe your stove is more awesome so always check them!  If you've used a good amount of sugar your muffin tops will be stiff and DELICIOUS! I also leave them on the counter uncovered so the tops stay firm and lovely. They are always eaten within the first night or the next morning anyway. 

Pasta

This pasta is so easy to do you can even have kids make their own portions if you have space and the patience for messy little ones.

The approximate proportions are for every 3/4-1 Cup flour an egg, a teaspoon of water, a teaspoon of salt and a TBSP of olive oil be used. From there you can make a great variety of kinds. You can leave out the oil and use more egg or you can leave out oil and use more water. Or in the water's place some puree spinach or herbs instead.

For about 4-6 servings is the recipe that follows:
1 slightly heaping cup unbleached flour
1 slightly heaping cup whole wheat
2 tsp salt
2 extra large eggs or 3 large eggs
2 TBSP olive oil

I chopped up a sprig of rosemary and put a little palm full into the 'pasta well.'

Pour the flour onto a large clean surface leaving it in a heap, push the measuring cup or your hand into it to make a little well to hold the other ingredients. Into the well put your eggs, salt, oil, any herbs or veggie mash/puree and blend the eggs and others in the center and push some of the flour into the center collecting as much flour as it will carry. Clean off your fork into your pile and toss him somewhere out of the way. Get your hands in there and work the dough from this ugly stage into a ball. DO NOT WORRY if it looks like a massive failure. Pasta does that, its a dirty trick it tries to play on you in a last ditch effort to not be eaten. It will comply with the palm of your hand. If you run out of flour and it wants more then add a little... if it is not blending and it is too dry then add a teaspoon of water until it gives up the goods and becomes blended.


Now that you have won and the ball is formed put it into either a covered bowl to rest or a plastic bag. Have it rest for 10-20 minutes until it goes from dry and leathery to lightly sticky and pliable. If not, give it a little more time. Clean up the chunky flour, sieve it and toss the chunks. Re-flour your big clean surface and press your ball out by hand into the floured surface allowing it to collect flour on both of its sides... form the ball into a rectangle to help you roll it out. Make certain flour is under it and roll, roll, roll, until it becomes smooth and thin. This is the most time consuming part. Once rolled out to be quite thin 1/16th of an inch? I don't know, I'm not an architect. Thin, but not totally translucent or anything. Flour the top which you were rolling on, flip and flour that side wipe off excess. Starting at one of the short sides roll it like a tube onto itself lightly.

 Once you have your tube cut little slices all the way through to make pasta strands. They'll look like little snails and now they can be put somewhere to dry or can be cooked straight away. I like to dry them for awhile or overnight so they are toothy and firmer. So if you like al dente then drying is for you.  Fresh pasta does cook faster than boxed pasta so monitor it closely.  It cooks in almost half the time.

I made a spinach pasta and was so excited that I didn't document much. So I promise to post that SOON!

Cast Iron skillet Pizza

Pear and goat cheese pizza

CRUST:

1/2 package dry yeast
1/3 cup warm or room temperature water
3/4 cup unbleached or whole wheat flour (you can mix and experiment with this)
3/8 tsp salt
3/4 tsp sugar or 1 tsp honey (honey is a great addition for aiding in rising breads)

This will make a 10-12 inch pizza. I often do a couple of bowls up with this recipe in it so each skillet can have a different kind of pizza in it. Does anyone ever agree on pizza toppings?

Mix yeast into warm water let sit for about 10 minutes. I preheat my oven to a warming temperature to create a warm environment for the dough. Mix salt and flour together and add sugar. Make sure it is thoroughly mixed salt kills yeast so you don't want direct contact. Then pour in water and blend with a spoon. Once mixed place in a warm spot and cover with either a warm damp towel or a clean towel. Let rise for at least 45 minutes. 2 hours is best but who has the time and it isn't all that different in the last hour. Oil the cast iron skillets - (the amount of oil/time you use will determine how crisp your crust is.  I cover it with a veil of oil and will check on it after 25 minutes to make sure it is crusting up.)

Then turn out dough onto a liberally floured surface knead in the flour and try to keep your dough approximately the shape of your pan. If the dough is a little firm and lost a lot of flexibility let it rest there for a few minutes (10). Make sure the surface is lightly floured for the roll out and use a pin to gently roll out your dough to the size of your pans bottom and or the sides as well. This dough wont be stiff enough to stay along the side of the pan but if you leave it a little thick it will make a "handle" crust.

Cover in your sauce, top with choice of toppings bake at 425 for about 20-30 minutes depending on your oven and your taste preferences.

Jalapeno cheddar pizza

Whole Wheat Focaccia

This is a FAST focaccia.  It wont have the complexity of a tenderly loved overnight focaccia. Chances are no one will complain. You can get wild with what goes on it or in it. ( I like to add jalapeno seeds on top) This recipe makes one loaf and you can make a smaller loaf which is much thicker by not rolling it out too vigorously in the end stages and that way you have something thick enough to cut for sandwiches and roll it out thinner if topping with cheese or sauces.

Directions:
3 cups whole wheat flour (this recipe isn't JUST for whole wheat so you can mix it up and half it with another fluffy flour)
1 teaspoon or 1 packet active dry yeast (you're safe with it rising as long as you cover the top of the water in the measuring cup, little more, little less wont hurt)
1 1/4 cups warm water (if the water is too warm it kills the yeast, so it should be warm to the inside of the wrist and a little less warm to the fingers)
6 cloves fresh garlic, thinly sliced
1 tsp salt (my house likes it's salt so we use a coarse sea salt to top it with so it has that kick to it)
3 Tbsp finely chopped fresh rosemary
3 Tbsp olive oil

Oil for brushing
fresh black pepper and coarse sea salt to taste (my house likes it's salt so we use a coarse sea salt to top it with so it has that kick to it) Garnishes include but are not limited to: oil, garlic, rosemary, salt, pepper(s). Anything like olives or softer things (feta) I recommend blending into the bread.


In the mixing cup:
Combine warm water and yeast. (let stand for at least 5 minutes so the yeast can activate and becomes foamy, if nothing changes stir the yeast with a spoon to get it saturated and let sit another 5 minutes)


In a large bowl:
Mix 1 tsp salt and flour together, you want the salt either already blended in or under the flour as it will kill the yeast. Stir in olive oil, 2 Tbsp chopped rosemary, pour in the water and yeast.

Work into a dough.
Add more flour if dough is too sticky.

Turn the dough on to a floured surface.

Knead the dough for a few minutes, in a folding motion until dough is smooth and 'happy' - when you see this in bread books it means silky and bouncy. Too much and it will be leather.

Grease the large bowl with olive oil and plop dough into it. Roll around a few times to coat dough in a gloss of oil.

Cover bowl with a warm damp cloth or clean dish towel. It is best to have towels just for bread and pastry baking, keep them clean and make sure they haven't any terry cloth loops to catch debris.  Paper towels may sink into dough, so are not recommended! I keep the dough near the stove and set the stove to a low warm setting to help the dough have a warm environment.

Let dough rise for 30-60 minutes. {Quick-rise yeast allows for only a 30 minutes rise time. Regular yeast is about an hour. Generally the longer you give a dough time the better it tastes, this isn't a wife's tale of patience making you hungrier it is the nature of the yeast  PUN NOT INTENDED like with sourdoughs which use a poolish (dough reserved from past recipe kept in the fridge and then added to the new dough) it adds a punch of flavor. But this at it's under 2 hours total prep time is considered a fast focaccia although faster if you use rapid yeast, I use Bob's Red Mill and not the rapid yeast, I have found that there is something in Redstar that kills me.  BRM is in the refrigerated section of many stores.} Be careful of yeasts as a lot of them are tainted with the bad stuff.

After the rise:
Punch out the dough. Just the one will do to collapse the dough.
Place it on your floured surface and knead gently a few more times. Should be silky and stretchy.

With a rolling pin, roll out dough to about 1 inch thick. You may modify this based on how thick you can your bread. 

Place dough on a lightly oiled baking sheet.  Poke rows of holes in the dough with your fingers.

Brush or drizzle or spritz top of dough with a mixture of your remaining ingredients: olive oil,  chopped and whole rosemary and chopped garlic. Sprinkle some course sea salt on top as well.  Let rise again for 20 minutes, in a warm spot. ( I often skip this last step - put my temp on the oven and let it rest on the pan just until the oven is hot enough after transferring the dough and then popped it in the oven, so maybe 5 or 10 minutes - this is just to regain a little fluffiness from its handling trauma and seems fine enough) A good time to have the oven near ready.

Bake:
Place your dough in a 350 degree pre-heated oven. Let bake for about 30-35 minutes, or until a light brown crust forms. Check bread for firmness with a toothpick. Let the bread cool for a few minutes before slicing.  You can cook it to you own preference. Behold the glory you have created.

Dried pepper sauce

I cannot get enough of dried peppers. Only smoked peppers beats dried, and they can be used in a plethora of ways.  Baked them into a bread or corn muffin to make soup companion.  Saute them into a sauce to make your marinara clear your sinuses.

Now depending on the kind of hot you are trying to acheive (I'm a firm believer that hots can be very complex) is how you treat the peppers and what kind of peppers you use.  I am horrible at organizing anything and labeling anything... so I often find myself discovering flavors as I go along.  For this sauce shown I heat up oil to enliven the heat of the peppers.

The basics:
1-4 tsp dried peppers
1/4 purple onion (minced)
2-4 garlic cloves (slivered)
1 pinch oregano Yes, that is a measurement I use, and hell that's the metric for it too.
You can add rosemary, I just forgot to.
1/4 tsp salt or to taste
drizzle - 1/4 c apple cider vinegar depending on your taste
drizzle olive oil for garlic slivers
and drizzle to taste after mixing everything else

I put the peppers into a little bowl, heat up a drizzle of olive oil. Cut the garlic and at med-high heat put slivers into the oil brown garlic for just a second, and once dark edges appear pour the whole thing onto the peppers... while the dry peppers soak up the hot oil I sprinkle a pinch of salt over it.  I take the purple onion and mince it, put into the bowl and pour in the vinegar a pinch of oregano and a little more oil.  Stir it up.  You can put this into a container or jar.  In the refrigerator the shelf life is pretty long and in the cupboard I would not leave it for more than a month before using entirely.

This sauce can be tossed into a pile of pasta, smeared onto a sandwich, put onto little crostini with a slice of cheese or blended with stale bread chunks to heat up your croutons (I'd add more oil for the latter).