Vacation!

I'm off!  Hopefully I will make lots of yummy food the whole week and be back with a new post on Monday, September 28.

In the meantime, how good does this sound?

Soft oatmeal bread

This bread completely reaffirms my love of no-knead breads.  This is super tasty, but so much more work, and produces a completely different kind of bread.  It takes about 3 hours from start to finish, which is of course much faster than the no-knead kind, but also requires a solid 30-40 minutes of actual work time, plus WAY more cleanup.

It does make a really soft, fluffy bread, though.  I'm pretty sure it will make fantastic sandwiches. 

Oatmeal-cranberry-white-chocolate-chip cookies

These were kind of disappointingly cakey, although I should've realized that ahead of time just by seeing that there is an entire teaspoon of baking soda. C'est la vie... I suppose every cookie can't be perfect.


From the back of a craisins bag.

2/3 c. butter, softened
2/3 c. brown sugar
2 eggs
1/2 t vanilla
1-1/2 cups old-fashioned oats
1-1/2 c. all purpose flour
1 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
1 6 oz. package (1-1/3 c.) Craisins or other dried fruit (I bet dried cherries would be good)
1 c. white chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375.

Cream butter and sugar; mix in eggs and vanilla.

In a separate bowl, combine flour, oats, baking soda, and salt. Mix dry ingredients into butter mixture in several additions. Stir in craisins and white chocolate chips.

Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets; bake for 10-12 minutes.

Makes ~32 cookies.

No-knead oatmeal bread

Another variation on no-knead bread; again, super easy and delicious. Kind of softer and chewier than whole wheat, and makes amazing sandwiches and toast.


1 c. rolled oats ('old-fashioned', NOT instant)
2 c. bread flour
1-1/2 t. salt
1/2 t. rapid rise yeast
1-1/3 c. water
1 T honey

Mix together dry ingredients; stir honey into water.

Stir sweetened water into flour mixture; dough should form into a shaggy ball.

Cover tightly with plastic wrap; let sit at room temperature for 8-12 hours, until bubbly.

Stir dough to punch it down; glop it into a well-oiled loaf pan. Sprinkle top with more oats. Cover loosely with plastic wrap; let rise 2-4 hours, until doubled in size.

Bake at 350 for 45-50 minutes.

Salad

Some of my favorite things to put on salads: strawberries, blue cheese, and basalmic vinegar.


This was: Romaine lettuce, onion, cucumber, chicken, strawberries, blue cheese, and olive oil and vinegar.

Sandwich

I love a really good sandwich.

Turkey, Swiss, avocado, tomato, and just a little mayo on homemade rye bread.

Buckeyes

This is a very Ohio dessert... Midwesterners know and love these. In honor of OSU football kicking off this afternoon:


They're easy, but fairly time consuming.

Buckeyes (makes a fridge full-- 5 or 6 dozen.)
2 c. smooth peanut butter (NOT the natural kind-- you need the oil to not separate)
1/2 c. butter, softened
1/2 t vanilla extract
5-6 c. powdered sugar
2 12 oz. bags of semisweet chocolate chips
2 T shortening

1. Cream peanut butter, butter, and vanilla. On low speed, beat in powdered sugar until it forms a doughy consistency.

2. Scoop out teaspoonfuls of dough; roll into 1-inch balls and put onto cookie sheet covered in waxed paper.


3. Put peanut butter balls into freezer for 30 minutes; when they are chilled, they are less oily and the chocolate sticks better.

4. In double boiler, melt chocolate chips and shortening. Stir until smooth. If, like me, you don't have a double boiler, put a metal bowl over a barely simmering pot of water.

5. Using a toothpick, dip each peanut butter ball into chocolate.

Put back on waxed paper; refrigerate until chocolate is set. Transfer to covered containers; chill until serving.


Notes: You may have to transfer the peanut butter balls back into the freezer periodically as they warm up to room temperature; it's probably best to work in batches. Also, this will take over your fridge; make sure you have room BEFORE you are trying to rig up shelves using beer bottles and cookie sheets. It's less stable than I thought.

Also, you will end up with extra melted chocolate; have other things to dip on hand, like strawberries or pretzels.

Corn bread

As fond as I am of Jiffy corn muffin mix, sometimes it's nice to have a heartier cornbread that doesn't double as dessert. Especially along with chili.


This made a super dense, savory corn bread.

From How to Cook Everything, using more or less the 'Corny Corn Bread' variation. I'm quite excited to try the 'Bacon Corn Bread' listed right under it, but thought it might be a bit rich with chicken chili.

Corny Corn Bread
1-1/4 c. buttermilk (or, as I used here, regular milk with 1 T white vinegar stirred in)
3 T butter
1-1/2 c. cornmeal
1/2 c. flour
1-1/2 t baking powder
1 t salt
1 T sugar
1 egg
kernels from 1 ear of sweet corn (or 1 c. frozen corn)

Preheat oven to 375; make sour milk if not using buttermilk.

Put butter in pan or skillet; heat on stove (if pan is stovetop safe) or in oven (if not). It will melt and turn all nutty smelling; take it off of the heat before it burns.

Mix together dry ingredients in a bowl; mix the egg into the buttermilk. Stir the buttermilk mixture into the cornmeal mixture. Stir in the corn.


Pour the batter into the pan; bake for 30 minutes.


NOTE: Yes, the milk with vinegar looks icky and smells weird. It's sour milk; it's supposed to. (Sadly, the picture of the lumpy milk-- white lumps in a white liquid-- did not come out on my little point and shoot.)