Tag: Baking

Veggie Cheese Muffins
Recipes

Veggie Cheese Muffins

Sarah

I was thinking of a recipe for a nutrient-packed side bread, and muffins called to me. They are portioned, so they are fair to share in the family. They are also easy to tuck in with lunch and spread with butter for a delicious treat. Savory, not sweet. They freeze well to help you stock up.

Veggie Cheese Muffins

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup finely chopped broccoli
  • 1 cup finely diced or grated carrots*
  • ½ cup frozen or drained canned corn
  • 1½ cups shredded white or regular cheddar cheese
  • 1/3 cup milk
  • 1/3 cup sour cream
  • ¼ cup olive oil
  • 2 large eggs
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 1½ tsp Italian herb blend
  • ¾ tsp fine sea salt

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°. Line a 12-count muffin tin with parchment liners.

Whisk the milk, sour cream, oil, and eggs in a large mixing bowl until smooth. Stir in the vegetables and cheese.

Add in the flour, baking powder, herbs, and salt, and stir in. The dough will be stiff.

Use a scoop to divide between the liners, pressing down gently.

Bake for 23 to 26 minutes, till baked, and a knife comes out clean in the center.

Let cool on a rack.

Makes 12 muffins.

Notes*

As I went to make these muffins, I realized I had no carrots in the house and that the ones outside were not grown enough. Due to injuring my left arm badly a week ago, I cannot drive for at least another five weeks. I also cannot use my left arm for a few more weeks, adding insult to it all. I cannot peel, slice, or chop with only one functioning arm. But I realized that this is exactly what prepping is about being able to cook nutritious food even with an injury. So I headed to my dried/freeze-dried pantry and got a can of carrots. Fifteen minutes soaking, and off we went to make the recipe. It was a moment when I realized what a resilient life is actually about and why it matters.

~Sarah

Vintage Recipes: Spicy Muffins
Recipes

Vintage Recipes: Spicy Muffins

Sarah

Not that long ago, spicy meant adding spices, not heat, to your recipes. Not that it has many actual spices added, it is very much a victim to the recipe’s age. Half a teaspoon of cinnamon is just a pinch of dust in each muffin. But I know, food with flavor wasn’t a real thing then. That is a real issue with vintage recipes, how seriously bland they can be.

This muffin recipe came from the booklet “Soup Cookery The Savory Heinz Way” either in the 1950 or 1956 edition.

It’s a twist on the classic spiced cake using condensed tomato soup. And no, once baked, you don’t smell or taste the soup. Only five years after WWII and the Great Depression ended, it was an affordable way to have a cake or muffins and use less sugar and oil.

I changed the cooking time to 20 minutes, and as I found 25 produced, I felt the muffins were too dry. Still, they were excellent, with a bit of unsalted butter spread on them and served with soup.

Spicy Muffins

Ingredients:

  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 4 tsp baking powder
  • ½ tsp fine sea salt
  • ¼ tsp baking soda
  • ¼ cup granulated sugar
  • ½ tsp ground nutmeg
  • ¼ tsp ground allspice
  • ½ tsp ground cinnamon
  • 1/8 tsp ground cloves
  • ½ cup raisins
  • 2 large eggs
  • ½ cup condensed tomato soup, undiluted*
  • ½ cup water
  • 2 Tbsp neutral oil, such as avocado

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375°, and line a 12-count muffin tin with parchment paper liners.

In a mixing bowl, whisk together the flour through cloves. Stir in the raisins.

Whisk together the eggs, soup, water, and oil in a small mixing bowl.

Add to the dry ingredients and stir till just mixed with a spatula.

Fill muffin liners 2/3 full.

Bake for 25 minutes.

Let cool on a rack for 5 minutes, then remove from the pan and let cool before eating.

Makes 12 muffins.

Notes:

Campbell used to make cream of tomato soup in condensed, but that has gone the way in recent years. Regular condensed tomato soup is easy to find, so I used it instead. It has a very short list of ingredients and is refreshingly “real” for a canned soup.

It’s ingredients:

Tomato Puree (Water, Tomato Paste), Water, Wheat Flour, Sugar, Contains Less Than 2% Of: Salt, Potassium Salt, Natural Flavoring, Citric Acid, Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C), Celery Extract, Garlic Oil.

One thought…I feel these muffins could have used double the oil. It would have produced a moister baked good.

~Sarah

Bread Machine Slider Buns
Recipes

Bread Machine Slider Buns

Sarah

The boys love having handcrafted rolls, be it for hamburgers, sliders, or even just snacking on. I have been working on this recipe, which has my Zojirushi bread machine doing most of the work for me. It frees up a lot of time, so I can be down in the garden instead of kneading bread. All I have to do is take it out, shape it into buns, and let it do the second rise, then a quick bake in the oven.

I only tested this recipe in a Zojorushi bread machine. The Zoji preheats the ingredients, whereas most bread machines do not. To use a different machine, you will need to heat the milk and butter in a small saucepan to about 120° and then proceed.

Slider Buns

Ingredients:

  • ½ cup whole milk
  • 1 large egg, beaten
  • ¼ cu unsalted butter, diced
  • 303 grams of all-purpose flour
  • 2 Tbsp granulated sugar
  • ½ tsp fine sea salt
  • 1 tsp active dry yeast

Egg Wash:

  • 1 large egg
  • 4 tsp water

Directions:

Add the ingredients in the order listed into a Zojirushi bread machine. Set for dough cycle (on our machine, it takes 1 hour and 50 minutes) and turn it on. During the first kneading cycle, check on it in case it needs a tiny bit more flour. The butter takes a few minutes to knead in smoothly.

When the cycle is done, knock out on a lightly floured work surface and divide into 8 sections.

Shape gently into a ball and place on a lightly oiled baking sheet.

Whisk the egg and water together and brush it over the buns.

Let rise, uncovered, in a warm area for 40 to 60 minutes, until doubled. I use a heating pad set on medium, that I prewarm the baking sheet on for 10 minutes before the dough is ready.

Preheat the oven to 375° in the last 10 minutes of the rise.

Bake for about 15 minutes, and the rolls are golden brown on top.

Use a thin spatula to transfer to a cooling rack.

If storing for the next day, store in a sealed plastic bag. Buns can be double-wrapped and frozen for up to a couple of months. Let thaw and use.

Makes 8 buns.

Notes:

If you want full-sized hamburger buns, divide them into 6 sections.

~Sarah

Mozzarella Herb Bread
Recipes

Mozzarella Herb Bread

Sarah

I came across this recipe and adapted it for my Zojirushi bread machine. The Zoji heats your ingredients, whereas most bread machines do not. I find this step is why it produces much better bread, especially using 3 forms of dairy, as in this recipe.

The original recipe was created for 3 sizes of breach machines: 1-pound, 1½-pound, and 2-pounds, which led to some very odd measurements for the 2-pound loaf (how many people have a measuring spoon for a 1/3 of a teaspoon after all).

Mozzarella Herb Bread

Ingredients:

  • 1 2/3 cups whole milk
  • 4 tsp unsalted butter ( 1 1/3 Tbsp)
  • 2 Tbsp + ¾tsp granulated sugar
  • 1¼ tsp fine sea salt
  • 2¾ tsp dried basil
  • 1¼ tsp dried oregano
  • 500 grams of all-purpose flour
  • 6-0ounces shredded mozzarella cheese
  • 2½ tsp bread machine/quick-rise yeast

Directions:

Following the directions for a Zojirushi bread machine –

Add the milk, butter, sugar, salt, basil, and oregano to the pan. Add the flour on top, then the cheese. Add the yeast on top, in a small well.

Set for a basic loaf, medium crust.

Check the machine during the first kneading cycle; sprinkle in more flour if it looks too sticky.

Once the bread is baked, remove it from the pan and let it cool for 5 minutes, then transfer it to a cooling rack.

Once cooled, store in a bread bag.

For the best taste, eat within 24 hours.

Makes a 2-pound loaf.

Notes:

If you are using a bread machine that doesn’t heat the ingredients, the butter should be melted and slightly cooled, and the milk warmed to at least 90°. I would suggest weighing the cheese and letting it come to room temperature for at least 30 minutes.

Don not use a delayed cycle, as this bread contains milk.

~Sarah

From Scratch Hamburger Buns
Recipes

From Scratch Hamburger Buns

Sarah

One of the biggest issues of making your food from scratch is that once you go all in, you often find that commercial-made food doesn’t taste good anymore. Or smell great. Or sit in your stomach right.

Bread is the biggest issue for me. When all I do is buy premade bread for months, I get used to the lower quality way too fast. And I get it. Making bread 6-7 days a week isn’t always sustainable or doable for many people. I usually have the time to do it, and I can also do double or triple baking on a free day and stock the freezer. But there are times I get lazy and fall off the baking wagon. That is when I walk into the store and I can smell the baking aisle. It doesn’t smell like bread anymore to me. Rather, I smell the dough additives and preservatives (often, you will see great companies claiming “no preservatives added,” but they have natural ways to keep it from molding, such as vinegar. Bread shouldn’t last for two weeks!

My weakness is when we grill. I will buy hamburger buns. No matter the brand, they always end up stale-tasting, dry, and gummy. The other night, I tossed my bun to the chickens as I sat on the porch eating dinner. It wasn’t worth the calories. And I knew I needed to learn to make my buns. And to quit being lazy. Because that really is what happens to me. It’s easier to drive to town, even though that is a pain in the butt in itself.

The buns I bought last weekend were Sara Lee® Artesano® Bakery Buns. Which my lazy self grabbed in a moment of weakness. Did I mention they are GE (so yes, GMO ingredients, which is most like the soy used in it)? I didn’t scan the label as I should have.

Ingredients:

ENRICHED WHEAT FLOUR [FLOUR, MALTED BARLEY FLOUR, REDUCED IRON, NIACIN, THIAMIN MONONITRATE (VITAMIN B1), RIBOFLAVIN (VITAMIN B2), FOLIC ACID], WATER, SUGAR, WHEAT GLUTEN, VEGETABLE OIL (SOYBEAN), YEAST, SEA SALT, CONTAINS 0.5% OR LESS OF EACH OF THE FOLLOWING: CULTURED WHEAT FLOUR, SOY LECITHIN, CITRIC ACID, GRAIN VINEGAR, SESAME SEEDS.

So, of that list, homemade doesn’t contain:

Wheat gluten, soybean oil, cultured wheat flour, soy lecithin, citric acid, vinegar, or sesame seeds. Nor does mine have any GMO ingredients or cheap seed oils.

Scratch Hamburger Buns

Ingredients:

  • 1¾ cups whole milk
  • 5 Tbsp unsalted butter
  • 2 large eggs
  • 3 Tbsp granulated sugar
  • 1 Tbsp instant yeast (quick-rise)
  • 750 grams of all-purpose flour
  • 1½ tsp fine sea salt
  • Olive oil for bowl

For wash

  • 1 large egg
  • 2 Tbsp cool water

Directions:

Turn a heating pad to medium setting.

In a saucepan, add the milk and butter, and heat over medium till the milk is 120°.

In a stand mixer bowl add the eggs, sugar and salt. Beat with the wire whisk attachment. Slowly add in the warm milk and butter, with the mixer on low. Add in the yeast.

Put the bread hook on, add in the flour, and let work in. Set the timer for 10 minutes, and turn the mixer up to medium once the flour is worked in. Let it knead the dough for you.

Sprinkle a bit of flour on a work surface. Knock the dough out. It will be pretty sticky. Start kneading by hand, and that bit of flour will leave it tack to touch, but not wet. Knead for a couple of minutes.

In a large mixing bowl drizzle in a bit of oil, add dough and flip. Cover with plastic wrap (I spritz with a tiny bit of oil to avoid sticking.

Place the bowl on the heating pad and let rise for 60 minutes.

Remove the bowl, place a large baking sheet on the heating pad.

Preheat oven to 350°.

Knock the dough out, roll into a long log. It was around 16″ long for me. Cut in half, then cut each section into 4 pieces for large buns, or into 10-12 pieces for smaller buns.

Roll into balls with your hands, tuck the dough under to make a smooth ball. Place on the baking sheet.

Cover with the plastic wrap again, and let rise for 10 minutes.

Whisk the egg and water together. Gently brush it over the rolls.

Bake for 20 minutes if doing 10 to 12 buns or 22 to 24 minutes for 8 buns.

Let cool for 5 minutes, loosen with a spatula, and place on a cooling rack.

To store it in the long term, double bag it when cool and freeze.

~Sarah