Tag: Recipes

Deviled Egg Macaroni Salad
Recipes

Deviled Egg Macaroni Salad

Sarah

It’s the taste of deviled egg potato salad, but pasta instead; it’s the perfect side dish for this coming week.

Deviled Egg Macaroni Salad

Ingredients:

  • 8 hard-boiled eggs, peeled
  • 8 ounces elbow macaroni
  • ½ cup plain greek yogurt
  • 1/3 cup mayonnaise
  • 1/3 cup chopped dill pickles
  • 2 Tbsp mustard (used a seedy type)
  • 1 Tbsp white vinegar
  • 1 tsp hot sauce
  • 1 tsp diced chives, fresh or dried
  • ½ tsp fine sea salt
  • ½ tsp paprika
  • ¼ tsp ground black pepper

Directions:

Bring a pot of water to a boil, cook pasta for a time on the package, drain, and rinse with cold water. Shake dry and place in a bowl.

Meanwhile, cut the eggs in half, remove the yolks, and place them in a small mixing bowl—mash with a fork.

Add in the yogurt, mayo, mustard, vinegar, hot sauce, paprika, chives, salt, and pepper. Whisk till smooth.

Mix the dressing with the pasta.

Chop the egg whites up and add in with the pickles.

Chill for at least 4 hours. If it is too dry, stir in a bit more mayo. The egg yolks produce a denser dressing,

~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

Nut-Free Snacking Granola
Recipes

Nut-Free Snacking Granola

Sarah

Granola has become so expensive, and the ingredients have gone downhill in quality. I used to make Kirk granola, so why not make it again? I wanted to perfect a base recipe, with no nuts, seeds or berries first.

The first version didn’t have enough “sauce” to cover the oats deeply. And it was salt-free. While we tend to follow a lower sodium diet, this was far too plain!

The second batch I upped the sauce and added a small amount of sea salt. If a person loves salty, I’d double it. But it was what I was craving – a crisp and chewy texture. Perfect for topping yogurt with!

Nut-Free Snacking Granola

Ingredients:

  • 3 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
  • ¼ cup avocado oil
  • ½ cup pure maple syrup
  • 2 Tbsp pure vanilla extract
  • ½ tsp fine sea salt

Directions:

Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.

Preheat the oven to 375°.

In a mixing bowl, whisk the oil, maple syrup, vanilla, and salt. Add the oats and mix till coated.

Scrape onto the parchment paper, and tidy the edges (keep it from burning).

Bake for 15 minutes, and let cool on a rack. Once it has sat for about 15 minutes, shake it out gently so the granola can cool more easily.

Store in a quart mason jar once cooled.

~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