I’m going to blog about food in this post, so if you aren’t interested in kitchen stuff, then you can skip it and I’ll do another one separately about life and kids outside the kitchen (although they are all mixed up in my real life!)
So far I have been using the bread machine quite a bit. I have made hot dog and hamburger buns – these were a big success. You know how little kids are – if something doesn’t look exactly like store-bought then they are very suspicious. But these looked great, the texture was perfect, I think because I bought and used actual bread flour – this makes a big difference! Of course everything I read said that it would, but it’s more expensive and I was being stubborn about it. The buns were so good that the kids and I even ate them plain as a snack later in the week.
It took trying five different whole wheat recipes until I found one that is just right for us. This one was perfect and will now become our staple week in week out sandwich bread. If you like honey whole wheat bread (like Orrowheat or Nature’s Own), I highly recommend it. (note I did not use shortening, I subbed butter instead..do people even still have shortening anymore???)
The nice thing about baking my own sandwich bread is that it doesn’t get wasted. It used to be that I would buy a fresh loaf every weekend and it would get used about halfway and then the rest would sit since we don’t eat a lot of sandwich bread during the week. Of course it wasn’t good by the following week so it would have to be thrown out (literally thrown out for birds or turtles, I wonder if that is where the term came from????). This way one loaf works out perfectly and if there are any leftovers I just make bread crumbs or croutons with it. No waste! And the best part is I know exactly what we are eating! Nothing unpronounceable in my bread!
In other kitchen news, I did end up making the French Onion soup recipe from an earlier post. Although not exactly like Panera soup, it is fantastically good (and really cheap to make.) The recipe as it is given is solid but I think it leaves out a lot of the technique involved in making this soup so I thought it might be interesting to show how I made it.
First off, I purposely used a non non-stick pan. You want things to stick. Also, if you are like me and whenever you read about sautéing vegetables in butter you reach for Pam instead, well, don’t do that for this one, you need the butter as a base.
I also added the salt and pepper at the beginning, because the salt will help extract the juices from the onion. Here is photo showing how I am letting the bottom and sides of the pan get covered in browned up bits of caramelized onions and butter, you need the heat fairly high.
After 20 minutes I used the ¾ cup of chicken broth to deglaze the pan. Then I used my wooden scraper spatula thing to scrape up all the brown bits of goodness. This is what turns your onions and soup base a nice sweet caramel color and flavor. Next add the three tables spoons of flour and let it cook out (it will thicken and turn a darker color). Then I threw in all the rest of the ingredients.
During the first 20 minutes of the onions cooking, get the croutons ready. The second 20 minutes (when the soup is all put together and is just cooking down) you can put in the croutons in the oven, this way they are both done at the same time.
Don’t be intimated by the 40 minutes start to finish time. Almost all of that is hands off time. Everyone was taking naps and I sat and read and then had soup in blessed silence. It was very relaxing and cozy for a blustery Sunday afternoon.
Lessons learned: Next time I will adjust the thyme to about 1/8 t – it was too thyme-y for me and I will cut the onion rings in smaller pieces, they ended up too long to fit in the spoon and Will felt they were too slurpy like noodles. Fresh bread makes good croutons for salad, but they did not hold up in the soup like older drier bread would do. Also I will add a handful of oatmeal to the top of my bread next Saturday.
On my wish list of things to try to make myself: A high fiber cracker like Special K crackers ($4 a box!) and also a healthier version of Cheese–its. ($3 a box), we go through a LOT of both of these.
On my wish list of kitchen gadgets I wish I had: some kind of mat to roll dough out on instead of the counter and a bread slicer.
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