English Muffins

I think my go to breakfast is usually a toasted English Muffin with butter, sometimes I will add a slice of cheese, or use them for breakfast sandwiches, for pizza for the kids lunch etc.  They are so versatile.

For the longest time I bought them, because.....well because it was easier that way, and it never had occurred to me that I could make them at home and have them turn out just as well.

A while ago I started researching English Muffin recipes, and came across so many different variations, so many different ways of cooking them.  Some call for using a cast iron skillet, some call for browning on a griddle and then moving them to the oven to finish baking, some use just the griddle....and then some, like the recipe I use cook on their own, while others use muffin pans and Alton Brown even used Tuna Cans.

I don't see the necessity of it, and that's why I went with this recipe to begin with.  I wanted it to be easy, I wanted it to not need any special baking tins or utensils.

English Muffins

Source: The Good housekeeping Illustrated Cookbook

2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast
about 5 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups milk
1/4 cup butter
1 egg
2 tbsp yellow cornmeal
vegetable oil



In a large bowl, combine sugar, salt, yeast and 1 1/2 cups of flour. In a saucepan over medium heat, heat milk and 1/4 cup of butter until very warm.
With mixer a low speed, gradually beat liquid into dry ingredients until just blended. Increase speed to medium; beat 2 minutes, occasionally scraping bowl with rubber spatula.
Gradually beat in egg and 1 cup flour or enough to make a thick batter; continue beating 2 minutes. With spoon, stir in enough additional flour (about 2 cups to make a stiff dough).

Turn dough onto lightly floured surface and knead just until well mixed, about 2 minutes. Shape dough into a ball and place in greased large bowl, turning dough over to grease top. Cover with a tea towel and let rise in a warm place, away from draft, until dough is doubled, about 1 1/2 hours.

Punch down dough. Turn dough onto lightly floured surface, cover with bowl for 15 minutes and let dough rest for easier shaping. Meanwhile, place cornmeal in a pie plate.

With lightly floured rolling pin, roll dough about 3/4 inch thick. With a 3 inch round cookie cutter, cut dough into circles. Re-roll scraps to make 18 circles in all.

Dip both sides of each circle in cornmeal; place coated circles about 1 inch apart on 2 cookie sheets. Cover cookie sheets with a tea towel and let rise in a warm place, away from draft, until doubled, about 45 minutes.

Lightly brush 12 inch skillet with vegetable oil. Over medium heat, heat skillet until hot.

Place 6 circles in skillet; cook 8 minutes on each side or until browned. Repeat with remaining circles. Cool muffins on wire rack. To store muffins for later use, wrap cooled muffins in plastic wrap or foil.

Good Ol' Banana Bread

When I have bananas that are starting to go mushy, I either make muffins, or whip up some banana bread loaves.

My children absolutely love them, they can easily go through a whole loaf just by themselves.

One of the other things I love about it is that this bread freezes beautifully, so I can make quite a few and pop them in the freezer for when we need it again.

There are so many variations out there, seems that everyone has their own true and tried recipe.  I have tried a few over the years, but there is one that I always go back to, it's written in a scraggy piece of paper filled with grease marks and fingerprints.

Good Ol' Banana Bread

2 cups flour
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup toasted coarsely chopped walnuts
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs, beaten
6 Tablespoons melted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup of buttermilk
3 ripe bananas, smashed (use a fork to break it down)


Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Grease a bread/loaf pan well.  I like to do it like my greatgrandma taught me, which was to use a bit of butter, and then flour.

In a bowl, combine the dry ingredients, flour, sugar, walnuts, baking soda and salt.   In a separate bowl combine the smashed bananas and the rest of the ingredients.  Add to dry ingredients and fold in until everything is well combined.

Pour into the prepared pan, spreading the mixture evenly.  (I either make two normal size loaves, or 3 mini loaves)

Bake for 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Pumpkin Chocolate Loaf

I've been baking up a storm lately, getting things ready to ship off for Christmas Gifts.

These mini loaves were a part of the homemade goodies and I just love the pumpkin and chocolate mix.

Another great recipe from Taste of Home.

Pumpkin Chocolate Loaf

3-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3-1/2 cups sugar
1-1/2 teaspoons salt
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1-1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1-1/4 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 to 1-1/4 teaspoons ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
3 eggs
1 can (29 ounces) solid-pack pumpkin
1-1/4 cups canola oil
3 ounces unsweetened chocolate, melted and cooled
1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups (12 ounces) semisweet chocolate chips

Directions

In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg.

In another large bowl, whisk the eggs, pumpkin, oil, chocolate and vanilla.

Stir into dry ingredients just until moistened. Fold in chips.

Transfer to three greased 9-in. x 5-in. loaf pans.

Bake at 350° for 55-65 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes before removing from pans to wire racks. Wrap and freeze for up to 6 months.

Yield: 3 loaves.

Note: I use the mini loaf pans and get 5 loaves out of this recipe.

Multigrain Bread

I know that it can be a bit overwhelming, truth be told many of the multigrain recipes call for so many ingredients and half of them you don't even know where to find. I'm not a gourmet cook, I've said it like a gazillion times and I wouldn't even know where to go find gourmet anything or special this or that. I don't frequent whole food stores or organic places, my base commissary is my gourmet shop and if you've ever been in one you'll know that it's hilarious to even suggest such a thing.

But anyway, I have dabbled with multigrain breads for a while, I researched here and there and looked at what seemed like an ocean of recipes. None caught my eye, until this one. It's really easy, and I promise you, the ingredients are not that extravagant. Give it a try :)

This recipe is adapted from Kiss My Spatula.



Multigrain Bread

3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup steel cut oats
4 tbsp flax seeds
2 1/4 cups bread flour
1 1/2 tsp table salt or 3/4 tbsp kosher salt
1 1/3 cups water
1 tbsp white distilled vinegar
1/4 tsp instant yeast

Method

Whisk flour, steel cut oats, flax seeds, yeast, and salt in large bowl. Add water and vinegar. Using rubber spatula, fold mixture, scraping up dry flour from bottom of bowl until shaggy, sticky ball forms. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.

Lay 12X18-inch sheet of parchment paper inside 10-inch skillet and spray with nonstick cooking spray. Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Transfer dough to lightly floured work surface and knead 10 to 15 times. Shape dough into ball by pulling edges into middle. Transfer dough, seam-side down, to parchment-lined skillet and spray surface of dough with nonstick cooking spray. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise at room temperature until dough has doubled in size and does not readily spring back when poked with finger, about 2 hours.

About 30 minutes before baking, adjust oven rack to lowest position, place 6-8 quart heavy-bottomed Dutch oven (with lid) on rack, and heat oven to 475 degrees. Lightly flour top of dough and, using razor blade or sharp knife, make 3 slits along top of dough.

Carefully remove pot from oven and remove lid. Pick up dough by lifting parchment overhang and lower into pot (let any excess parchment hang over pot edge). Cover pot and place in oven. Reduce oven temperature to 425 degrees and bake covered for 30 minutes. Remove lid and continue to bake until loaf is deep brown and instant-read thermometer inserted into center registers 210 degrees, 20 to 30 minutes longer. Carefully remove bread from pot; transfer to wire rack and cool to room temperature before slicing.



Then you have to make sandwiches right?

Pepperoni Pizza and Roast Chicken Rolls

Friday nights around here mean pizza, or calzones, or pizza rolls, or pepperoni bread or foccacia or whatever along those lines, which means I'm always on the look out for something to try.

Enter Pinterest.  I would tell you all about it but I don't think I need to, seems everyone and their momma is on pinterest pinning things and sharing things and trying things.



It's like the cool place to hang out and also the place you go to when you want to do absolutely nothing for hours and hours on end.  Yeah you know all about Pinterest.

So while searching for pizza ideas etc, I saw this recipe for Pepperoni Rolls.  Light Bulb moment for me, I haven't made Pepperoni Pizza Rolls in a while, perfect.  Quick, easy and the family loves them.  Now there really isn't a specific recipe for these, matter of fact you can find all sorts of variations all over the internet, everyone uses different dough, everyone uses different fillings, some put the sauce inside, others leave it as a dip on the outside, some leave it whole and slice it when it's time to serve (which is what I do), others slice it up BEFORE baking.  And so on and so forth.



The recipe I saw on Pinterest was from What About Pie and the only different thing about hers, is that she uses my favorite Rhodes Frozen Bread loaves.  Genius!  I usually go with crescent rolls, or homemade pizza dough or Pillsbury French Bread dough, but I really do like how the Rhodes Loaves turned out. :)

We've had a super crazy busy week with sick people, including myself so tonight was Pizza night and the perfect time to serve these again.     But I'm weird, I don't really much care for Pepperoni, I know, shocker.  So when I make Pizza or whatever, I always make something else for myself and tonight I decided to use my leftover roast chicken....and well.........I'll show you what came out of it below.



Pepperoni Pizza Rolls

1 bag Rhodes Frozen Bread Loaves (I always have this in my freezer, use it for many recipes)
Pepperoni slices (I always use the big slices)
Mozzarella, Cheddar, Provolone, whatever you wish
Italian Seasoning
Butter

Let your bread loaves thaw out according to package directions.

When completely thawed, sprinkle a little bit of flour on your working surface and then roll the dough out into a rectangle. It may be a little hard at first cause it has the tendency to be elastic and snap back....but keep it at, it will eventually work.

Drizzle a little bit of olive oil and brush it all over, I actually prefer to use my hand to just smear it on nicely. (Just remember to wash your hands well after)

Layer on the pepperoni, then your cheese. I used whatever I have on hand, shredded is fine, sliced is fine too.



Sprinkle on some Italian Seasoning and then roll the bread up nice and tight. Place on a cookie sheet.



Repeat with the other 2 bread loaves.

I only did 2 of the Pepperoni because as I said, I don't much care for it, so I wanted to use up leftover roast chicken.

Here's what I did......rolled the dough to a rectangle.

Then spread on some Buttermilk Ranch. Next I added the leftover chicken which I first shredded.

Topped the chicken with some Provolone Cheese slices, sprinkled on some onion powder and a little oregano and finished it with a basil leaf which I tore into pieces. Roll it up.





Place it on the sheet with the other two, remember to leave a little space.

For the top, the recipe from What About Pie uses melted better, I don't, but I decided to try it, so I just grabbed my butter dish and spread some butter over the top of the rolls.



Pop in a 375 degree oven and cook for about 20 to 25 minutes until golden brown and hollow sounding when tapped on top.





NOTE: It's happened to me before where the very center of the pepperoni bread/calzone etc, wasn't cooked through, that is usually because I don't have the dough rolled out thin enough. If your dough is on the thicker side you may want to turn the oven down to about 325 and cook it a little longer to ensure the middle is cooked through :)

Slow Cooker Cornbread

If I told you this was really easy would you think me crazy?



I will admit that there are certain things, that I never imagine trying in the slow cooker, until I actually do and then I'm shocked at how it took me so long to try.

Let me just show you how super easy this is to make....you can use a homemade cornbread recipe or you can use the boxed mix from Jiffy.  I've tried it both ways and it always turns out great :)

Just one thing, the timing is a little iffy in the sense that some will tell you to cook it on high for 3 hours, others will say for 1 hour.  What I do is check it after one hour and usually it's done for me, but just keep an eye on it and when a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean, you know it's ready.

Slow Cooker Cornbread

1 box Jiffy cornbread mix (or homemade)

Spray the inside of a 2 and a half quart slow cooker pan.

Mix the ingredients according to package directions.  Pour into the pan and cook on HIGH for an hour or until toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

That's IT!



Just perfect for some chili :)

Cinnamon-Swirl Bread

Mmmmm, toasted with some butter slathered on.  *drool*

One of my favorite breakfast treats, right along with a big cup of hot coffee.  But truth be told, it's expensive, I cringe everytime I pay close to and sometimes over $3 for a small loaf.  Ridiculous, when I can make it at home.

This is the recipe I use the most.  Granted I don't make it too often, not because I don't like it but because I forget about it and then go months without it and then suddenly get a craving for some Cinnamon Bread and have to make it again.

Go on over and check out Chickens in the Road, love that blog :)

Cinnamon-Swirl Bread

1 1/2 cups warm water
1 teaspoon yeast
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup sugar
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons butter, melted
1/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon

In a large bowl, combine water, yeast, sugar, and salt. Let sit five minutes. Stir in the first cup and a half of flour with a heavy spoon. Add the next cup of flour a little at a time as needed, stirring until dough becomes too stiff to continue stirring easily. Add a little more flour and begin kneading. The amount of flour is approximate–your mileage may vary! Continue adding flour and kneading until the dough is smooth and elastic. Let dough rise in a greased, covered bowl until doubled. (Usually, about an hour.)

Uncover bowl; sprinkle in a little more flour and knead again.

Now it’s time to play with dough!

Roll dough out on a floured surface into an approx. 12-inch by 7-inch rectangle. Brush lightly with melted butter.

Combine 1/4 cup sugar and 2 teaspoons cinnamon. Sprinkle sugar-cinnamon mixture over dough.

Roll up, pinching seams at bottom and ends. Place seam-side down in loaf pan. Let rise until tall and beautiful! (I actually wanted small loaves, so I rolled it all up as it's directed, then cut the big loaf in half, pinched the seams nicely and placed it in two small loaf pans)



Bake Cinnamon-Swirl Bread at 350-degrees for 25 minutes. Makes one loaf.


Powdered Sugar Icing:
Combine 1/2 cup sifted powdered sugar, 1/4 teaspoon vanilla, and enough milk (one to two teaspoons) for drizzling consistency.

Watch it disappear as fast as you can take it out of the oven and slice it!

Whole Grain Fat Free Banana Bread AND Muffins

One of my bloggy friends Lori, has a great blog and she shares a lot of great recipes too.  This one caught my eye the other day and it was one of those moments where I just knew I had to make it. 

Banana bread is one of those things for me that I honestly have to say, I've had a hard time finding a good recipe and it's kinda turned me off it.  But I figured, what's one more recipe to try and it's healthy and low calories and low fat, I may as well give it a go....and give it a go I did and it's delicious.  I think I may have just found my Banana Bread recipe.  Yay!

Lori got the recipe originally from Vickilynn at What's Cookin' Today?

WHOLE GRAIN FAT FREE BANANA BREAD

Recipe By :© 2001 Vickilynn Haycraft
Serving Size : 24

3 cups whole wheat flour — or Kamut
1 cup honey
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
4 medium egg whites (or 2 whole eggs)
2 cups banana — mashed
1/2 cup applesauce, unsweetened
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup organic dried fruit (optional) We like raisins, apricots, dates and dried cranberries.

**For chocolate version,  omit fruit and add 2 Tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder to flour and 1/4 cup malt-sweetened carob chips — or chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease 2 8×4 inch loaf pans. In a large bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Place egg whites, bananas, honey and applesauce in a mixing bowl and mix well until thoroughly mixed.

Add liquid mixture to dry ingredients and stir just until combined. Divide batter evenly between the 2prepared pans.

Bake in preheated oven for 50 to 55 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of loaf comes out clean. Turn out onto cooling rack and allow to cool before slicing.
Each loaf makes 12 slices

Also can be made as one bundt cake. Bake same amount of time. Each bundt cake yields 30 slices

OR you can turn the second loaf into muffins, which is what I did.

And these only add up to 117 calories per muffin

Per Serving: 117 Calories; trace Fat (2.7% calories from fat); 3g Protein; 28g Carbohydrate; 2g Dietary Fiber; 0mg Cholesterol; 136mg Sodium. Exchanges: 1/2 Grain(Starch); 0 Lean Meat; 1/2 Fruit; 0 Fat; 1 Other Carbohydrates.