A FRIDGE FULL OF FOOD...

Happy St. Pat's Day: Traditional "Brown Bread" Irish Soda Bread

 

After doing a little research, I found that what I have bought in bakeries in years prior that was advertised as "Irish Soda Bread" is not even close to the daily quick bread baked in Ireland mid-1800's through the turn of the century.  Most of the Irish Soda Bread I've had commercially prepared was a yeasted bread with raisins.  According to the "Society for the Preservation of Irish Soda Bread" that is not even close and it makes sense.  Soda Bread was a daily meal bread, so it wouldn't be sweet or difficult to make. Like American southern biscuits (and the recipes closely resembles that) it would be something homemakers would make quickly and easily every few days to be eaten during regular meals.  So the basic REAL soda bread contains just four ingredients:  flour, salt, baking soda, and buttermilk.  Another little tidbit of interest is that not only does this bread not contain yeast, it didn't even come into existence until the commercial availability of "bicarbonate of soda" or baking soda in the mid-1800's.

Click on either of the links provided here to the Irish Soda Bread web site for more information. I found the author to be very informative and passionate about her subject, to the point of being on the entertainingly cranky side about what does NOT constitute traditional Irish soda bread.  It's a fun read.

War Eagle Mill: Faith Brockoff's Farmhouse Bread

Mmmm...breakfast this morning of Egg-in-the-Hole made from the bread brought home from War Eagle Mill's bread class.  Literally, what a tasty reminder of last weekend's fun with Aunti, Ann, Doug, and Faith!

For lots of photos and details of our weekend bread class at War Eagle Mill, click HERE.

Speaking of Faith, she has graciously allowed me to reprint her recipe here on the blog--Thank you so much!

Happy Birthday to Aunti: War Eagle Mill Artisan Bread Class

 

Edit:  War Eagle Mill's head baker, Faith Brockoff, has graciously allowed me to reprint her bread recipe here on the blog.  To view, click HERE. Thank you Faith!

The story of our War Eagle Mill's Artisan Bread class is one of mystery and intrigue.  At least for Aunti Susan it was.  Being on the mill's email newsletter list, a few weeks ago I saw notice of a special artisan bread class being given by their head baker, who turned out to be a lovely woman named Faith. Knowing the class was going to be hands-on and quite small, I shot off an email asking for them to reserve three places and that I would get back to them by the end of the day.  I immediately called Ann and asked "Any chance you have Friday and Saturday, April 23rd & 24th off so we can take Aunt Susan to War Eagle for a bread class?"  Sharp intake of her breath "Yes! I think...let me check...oh I hope so...YES!!!"

And with that, it was pretty much set. We didn't give Susan much of a choice, we just emailed her and told her she was being kidnapped for her birthday on those days and to be sure and pack a casual overnight bag.  Always being up for fun, her response was "Okey dokey."  Being a good little kidnappee, she asked no questions.

Spring Break with the Nieces: Home-made Pizza, Wii, & Sleeping Under Nannie's Love

Had the nieces: Jordan, Holli, and Sydney over for a couple of days over spring break which was great fun!  Friday night we made homemade pizza's.  Homemade, as in Sandra Lee homemade--70% store, 30% fresh--and it worked out great. We used white and honey wheat store-bought bread douigh as the base and jarred pizza sauce.  From there, everyone added their own favorite toppings in whatever quantities they wanted:  ground beef, sausage, pepperoni, onions, mushrooms, Italian mixed cheeses, and Colby/Monterrey Jack mix.    The bread dough made a great crust: sturdy crsip bottom with perfect chewiness inside, and as thick or thin as we cared to roll it out.

Jordan and Holli challenged each other to Wii...allllllllllll night looooooooooong.  I think they gave it up about 3am Saturday morning before heading to bed.  Jordan ruled in bowling and tennis, I believe, and Holli ranked in baseball and boxing.  Not too bad considering she was wearing a wrist splint.

Marlena Spieler Onion Rolls by way of Cooking Schmooking

 

Melody, over at Cooking Schmooking participates in Sundays with Marlena Spieler blog-off of sorts and this last week the onion rolls caught my attention in a big way. I've made dinner rolls before with spring onions and parmesan cheese mixed into the dough that were divine so I was quite interested in trying this recipe too, especially after Melody noted that her husband "happily" made this recipe and that they loved them.  Man in the kitchen = must try this recipe!

I have to confess one thing though--I flinched.  When you make these--DON'T FLINCH, don't wimp, don't wuss, don't chicken!  Gene and I liked the texture of the rolls but I was thinking, while he said out loud, "These taste good but I sure thought they would have a stronger flavor."  They would have had I not chickened out at the end and only put in half the onions. It seemed like so much but you really need them all.  So what I came up with was a very pleasant, but bland, onion roll.  Note to self: next time just take the plunge and mix in ALL the onions! 

By the way, I served them with meatloaf and not only were they the perfect accompaniment bread, they made for awesome meatloaf sandwiches for lunch today!

Lovely Whole Wheat Challah Knots

I love messing with Gene's head. I told him that for dinner we were going to have roasted chicken and challah bread. I love the funny look he gets on his face that says "Oh crap, she's experimenting on my food again!" But the truth is, once he tasted it, it was only a familiar egg bread that I've baked him a thousand times over the last 20 years. 

Which is another thing I love about food and cooking. There are so many names for the same foods that I find cooking a fun puzzle of a game.  The first time I actually read a recipe for and made polenta, I giggled because it sounds so exotic and looked so lush to watch Mario Batali make it, only to find out that polenta is merely my beloved corn meal mush from my child hood.  We ate it all the time as hot cereal in the winter and then my mother would cut the leftovers that had congealed with cold in the fridge into thick slabs, fry them in butter, and pour hot maple syrup on them for another breakfast treat the next day.

Challah is another of those things.  Here in the Bible Belt, challah sounds exotic until you make it and realize it's a delicious egg bread, like many other egg breads, although not usually as sweet as brioche or Sally Lunn bread.

I've made a few changes based on my new health guidelines:  butter/oil changed to olive oil and fine white flour changed to white whole wheat. The white whole wheat is heavier than processed white flour but lighter than the typical whole grain flour made from hard red wheat.  It's a nice compromise for lighter breads like this.

Christmas Bread/Cake/Fruit Cake...the rest of the story

And how did the fruitcake from this October post turn out? Quite well, thank you! Not only is it moist and delicious from its two months of feedings of (alternating) Michael Collins Irish Whiskey and Southern Comfort, it is now decorated prettily with a swipe of white sugar glaze and a fondant wreath, and nestled each into its only little Christmas-themed goody box waiting to go home with family members following our party on Saturday. (Yes, I did leave a few out to slice up for the party.)

For anyone who was intimidated by the 20 mini loaves this recipe made, go ahead and consider it for next year.  Next year I think I will probably only get about 15 loaves because I'll fill the mini loaf containers higher with batter before baking AND I've found that having given a few away early this year and having sampled one or two along the process, I'm left with only 12 for the final count including the ones I set aside to cut/serve at the party. The batch size wasn't as overwhelming as it might have seemed at first. Trust me.

Link to the recipe/original photos and my diatribe about bad fruitcake :-) :   http://afridgefulloffood.typepad.com/my_weblog/2009/11/fruit-cake-is-goodif-you-do-it-right.html

St. Lucia Day: St. Lucia Saffron & Raisin Wreath

 

St. Lucia Day is celebrated throughout Scandinavia and in Italy where St. Lucia was born and died a martyr under the Roman Emporer Diocletian, circa 300 A.D.  The story goes that while she was carrying food supplies into the catacombs to hiding Christians, she needed her hands free so she fashioned a wreath of candles in her hair to light her way.

That story, combined with Medieval superstions about the winter solstice being a night of evil lurking in the dark giving way to the light and goodness of morning, transcended into a celebration of St. Lucia, the girl with the lighted wreath in her hair leading the people out into the literal and philosophical light, freedom, and goodness, by having the oldest daughter of the family dress in a long white dress with a red sash and a wreath of candles in her hair serve saffron buns and coffee to her family on the morning of the holiday.

The story has always appealed to me.  As the oldest daughter, I like the idea of serving my family and if part of that is cooking, then I'll be there with bells on.  Or candles on. Or a mag flashlight or anything that won't burn me alive in the process of the fun.

To mark the day two years ago I made individual swirled saffron buns. They were lovely tasting but I wasn't crazy about the way the raisins looked. No big.  This year, though, I went for a different presentation method and loved the results!

Fruit Cake IS Good...if you do it right

All my life I've thought fruit cake, even my cake baker Mother's, was the nastiest food on the planet.  It's dry, it's got GREEN pineapple in it, poisonous maraschino cherries (okay, just because they're approved by the FDA doesn't convince me that soaking cherries in formaldehyde, and then recoloring them with red dye and chemical flavors, makes for something good for the body), it's dry, it's tasteless, it's dry... well, you get the idea. You've all been tricked into taking a bite of the stuff at least once in your life. And I bet your swore off it too.

When I started blogging I noticed that all the English bloggers got all excited and into Christmas Cake each October/November and spent the next couple of months "feeding", nurturing, and dreaming out loud of their Christmas cakes.  I wondered what this wondrous stuff was.  I mean, come on, I grew up in a cake decorator's household and grew up to be a baker for a while too.  Was there possibly some divine cake I'd never heard of or made myself?  I looked more closely at those cakes on those blogs and was shocked, shocked I tell you!, to see that Christmas Cake was that other awful "F" word--Fruit Cake!!!

At first I thought it must be the seventh sign of the Apocalypse that a whole country would enjoy making AND EATING such a repulsive cake but then I started looking at the recipes and methods more closely and saw my favorite "B" word, as in "booze".  It was my Oprah "AHA" moment heard 'round my house!  The answer to good fruit cake was laid out in front of my eyes.  Our Puritan forefathers had obviously screwed the pooch on this one when they denied me alcohol in my fruit cake.

Okay, seriously, I think part of my problem with fruit cake is that I always expected fruit cake to be  "cake" and to Americans, cake is light and fluffy. I think it should be called "Fruit Bread"  because, honestly, it's much more of a fruited bread in texture and density than it is a cake, although the cake designation may come from the idea that a lot of non-Americans bake theirs in round cake tins, where we're used to the long square log of nasty.  So once I wrapped my head around the idea that it's really a bread, then I took the recipes that I'd been playing with this summer and combined them with my own baking knowledge to come up with my personal fruit cake/bread recipe that not only tastes great but doesn't require a cup of coffee or tea to wash down the sawdust aftertaste. It comes out a dense, moist bread with a sugary, fruity taste and a pop of smokiness from the whiskey.   It's good straight out of the oven but really something special after being fed for a month or two.  Give this one a try and you might change your mind about fruit cake like I did.

Breakfast Starts the Day off Right. Right? Right! Cornbread Frittata

 

One of the things I've been changing about the way I eat since I've been following the Mediterranean Diet path is the way I approach breakfast.  Like a lot of people I either tend to skip breakfast or eat all the wrong things.  For example, I work the night shift so when I get off shift in the morning I'm starving and ready to eat pretty much anything and everything. Technically, for nightshifters, the a.m. is our dinner time.  We eat breakfast when we get up around 4pm, lunch at 1am, and dinner for breakfast, but I've really been trying to get back into a more traditionally routine eating pattern even when I work, especially since working 12 hour shifts, we don't work a five day work week.

What I've found through experimentation is that when I choose wholesome whole grained foods for breakfast that also contain a serving of fruit and/or veggies I have a much better day over all whether I'm up or sleeping for the day.  We all know basic nutrition.  Whole grains and fresh produce last longer in our systems because they're nutritionally dense and take longer to break down, creating a more even supply of glucose instead of the normal sugar/caffeine high and low of Krispie Kremes, Cocoa Puffs, and Caramel Mocha Coffee.  Weight Watchers call these nutritionally dense foods simply "filling" foods.  I'm experimenting with a lot of different things but I'm finding, so far, that egg dishes with fresh veggies and cereals like Irish oatmeal or Grapenuts with a side of fruit hit the spot and last all morning.