Monthly Archives: November 2006

Praise the Lord…

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… that I don’t live in Kentucky.

I happened across this lovely screed on another site I frequent. It looks like Ms. Mcbrearty is stuck in 1978:

They still want utopia, and it wouldn’t be worth mentioning except that their naiveté has aged into a persistent denial of reality that may have devastating consequences.

For example, consider their continued belief that America’s armed forces are neo-Nazi stormtroopers who delight in burning babies to further the aims of imperialistic corporations.

Such nonsense, now treated as legitimate by the left-leaning media, denigrates the patriotic values and sincerity of half the nation. It undermines the war effort, insults the dead and the survivors of battle and their families, and supports the aims of the enemy. Translated into immigration or national defense policy, it is an invitation to the world to destroy our country.

Or maybe she’s just off her meds.

Recipe: Chocolate Banana Bread

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Ingredients:

  • 1/2 cup toasted walnuts or pecans, coarsely chopped
  • 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1/4 cup cocoa powder
  • 1 cup granulated white sugar
  • 1 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 cup (white optional) chocolate chips
  • 2 large eggs, lightly beaten
  • 1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled
  • 3 ripe bananas (approximately 1 pound), mashed well (about 1-1/2 cups)
  • 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
  • Turbinado sugar for garnish

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and place oven rack to middle position. Butter and flour (or spray with a non stick vegetable/flour spray) the bottom and sides of a 9 x 5 x 3 inch loaf pan. Set aside.

Place the nuts on a baking sheet and bake for about 8 – 10 minutes or until lightly toasted. Let cool and then chop coarsely.

In a large bowl whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

In a medium-sized bowl combine the mashed bananas, eggs, melted butter, and vanilla. With a rubber spatula or wooden spoon, lightly fold the wet ingredients (banana mixture) into the dry ingredients until just combined and batter is thick and chunky. Fold in the nuts and chocolate chips. Scrape batter into prepared pan and sprinkle the top of the bread with coarse brown sugar (optional). Bake until bread has risen and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 55 to 65 minutes. Place on a wire rack to cool and then remove the bread from the pan. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Makes 1 – 9 x 5 x 3 inch loaf.

Bisquick Biscuits

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I love traditional Bisquick baking mix. I was raised on it. I’ve used it for as long as I’ve been cooking.

Something I hadn’t heard of popped up on my Amazon Gold Box last week that purports to be a “just add water” Bisquick. (Regular Bisquick requires milk.) This new product comes in small packets. The price was right, so I bought some. It arrived on Friday.

I like biscuits for Sunday breakfast, so I whipped up a batch this morning. The results were interesting. On the negative side, the raw dough is nasty. There are little lumps of a fatty substance, which I assume are the chunks of hydrolyzed fat that turn brown when cooked. The dough also isn’t as salty as regular Bisquick. You definitely won’t be tempted to eat the raw trimmings left from cutting the biscuits.

On the plus side, this gives a nicer biscuit than regular Bisquick, though not as good as my made-from-scratch. It’s a much looser crumb, and those little fat chunks brown nicely, giving a mottled texture to the biscuit. The result looks almost exactly like the picture on the package, a rarity in the food world. The biscuit itself tastes fine.

This also comes in various flavors. One packet makes six small or four large biscuits. It’s made by Betty Crocker (General Mills.) For the allergic crowd, it does contain wheat, milk, and egg ingredients. It also contains partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, in fact, quite a bit of it. (So does regular Bisquick.)

General conclusion: I won’t throw away the rest of the box, but I probably won’t be buying more either.

New Bread Recipe

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This is an interesting technique for breadmaking. It’s a very wet dough that doesn’t require kneading. I’m making a batch now…. I’ll update when it’s done.

Borrowed from The NY Times. (That link will die pretty quickly; the Times thinks that making people pay for their archives is good business. Whatever.)

Adapted from Jim Lahey, Sullivan Street Bakery
Time: About 1½ hours plus 14 to 20 hours’ rising

Ingredients:

  • 3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting
  • ¼ teaspoon instant yeast
  • 1¼ teaspoons salt
  • Cornmeal or wheat bran as needed.
  1. In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 5/8 cups water, and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.
  2. Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal; put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours.
  3. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is O.K. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes.
  4. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack.

Yield: One 1½-pound loaf.