French Bread (4 Star)

My first born loves to cook and bake. He recently learned how to make french bread (which he currently sells to a couple of our neighbors!) and it is really good and not that hard to make--in the bread maker, that is! He uses the dough setting on the bread maker and bakes it in the oven.



French Bread

2/3 cup water
2 teaspoons olive oil
1 1/2 Tablespoons sugar
3 1/4 cups white bread flour (we actually just use Lehi Roller Mills unbleached all purpose and it still works well)
2 Tablespoons gluten flour
2/3 cup water
3 1/2 teaspoons active dry or 3 teaspoons rapid rise yeast

Place the above ingredients in the order listed into the bread maker pan. Follow the bread maker instructions for the "dough" cycle. When the "dough" cycle is finished, dump the dough out onto a very lightly floured surface and divide in half. (He makes two small loaves with this recipe but you could also make one large loaf.)

At this point place a small metal pan on your oven floor and set your oven to 450 degrees to begin pre-heating.

Shape the dough halves into elongated loaves with your hands, if you want to be fast, and then place them side by side on a buttered jelly roll pan. If you want well formed loaves and don't mind taking a little more time, follow the instructions in this tutorial. It requires a little rolling but still isn't too difficult.

Allow the loaves to rise for about 20 minutes and with a sharp, serrated knife, make five to six diagonal slashes across the top of the loaf. Place the pan into the oven and immediately dump a half cup of water into the hot pan on the bottom of the stove. This creates steam that makes the crust crispy. Bake in the pre-heated oven for about 15 minutes for two small loaves, or 20-25 minutes for one large one.

If you don't have a bread maker or just want much better instructions than I have given, go here. This is the same tutorial I mentioned above--she has very thorough instructions with pictures.

Dutch Oven Sausage and Potatoes and Roasted Pineapple (4 Star)

Yesterday we went "camping" (just a super quick evening trip up the canyon for dinner) and we made our favorite dutch oven meal. It is our very favorite, and to be honest, I've only made one other meal in the dutch oven because we all love this so much that there hasn't been much incentive to try anything else. So here it is, Sausage and Potatoes. It is amazingly simple.

Dutch Oven Sausage and Potatoes

2 pounds of your favorite sausage, sliced into chunks if it is links (I used my homemade Sweet and Spicy Sausage this time. I've also used different kinds of Aidells sausage with awesome results. The sausage can either be raw or pre-cooked--this meal cooks long enough to cook raw sausage through and pre-cooked works just fine, too.)
15-20 peeled and diced medium potatoes
1 large onion, chopped
1 stick of butter (margarine=blech, butter=awesomeness)
1-1 1/2 teaspoons sea salt (to taste)
1 teaspoon pepper (to taste)
6-8 quart dutch oven (I can't remember what mine is! But one of those two, I think.)
50-60 charcoal briquettes

Heat the briquettes in a pile as per charcoal briquette instructions. When they are ready, place about 20-25 coals in the place you plan to cook with the dutch oven, enough to cover the bottom of the oven. Place the oven on top of the coals and allow to heat for several minutes.

When hot, put 2-3 Tablespoons of the butter into the dutch oven and swirl it around. It should sizzle. Dump in the onion and stir around a bit. Then put in the sausage and break it up if it is loose sausage like I used. Allow it to heat and sizzle a bit and then dump in the potatoes. Sprinkle on the salt and pepper and cut the rest of the butter into small chunks on top.



Place the lid onto the oven and put enough briquettes on top to cover. We had about 30 on top. Allow to cook for 15-20 minutes, then lift up lid and stir. Break up any large chunks of sausage, if necessary, and be sure that it is cooking properly. It should all be sizzling along nicely. Replace the lid and give it another 15-20 minutes to cook and then check. Cook longer if necessary. Ours was done at this point, the potatoes nice and soft. Give it a stir and serve.



This makes a fairly large amount, but we put it away so easily that we ate about 2/3 of it, leaving a little for the next day. Even my most pickiest boy had seconds.

Why does food cooked in a dutch oven in the woods taste so amazingly awesome? I think there's more to it than just slow, even cooking. Cast iron dutch ovens are like magic. So is a campfire in the woods.



Oooh, baby!



We tried something new this time--we roasted pineapple over the fire. We just used plain pineapple cut into spears and skewered on a roaster and roasted like hot dogs until they were a little blackened.



They were so good, even without any sauce, and a great accompaniment to the sausage and potatoes. We were thinking that for next time it would be fun to try a fruit kabob comprised of pineapple, banana, and peach, roasted over the fire. What do you think?

Becca's Dinner Rolls (4 Star)

I don't make these very often because I can easily eat ten in one sitting. In fact, it's hard for me not to eat ten in one sitting. If there were no negative consequences to this kind of consumption I would make them every day. But when I do make them, wowza! They are soft and just a smidgen chewy if you consume them warm; they are also sweet and buttery. Ahhh, it doesn't get too much better than fresh, warm dinner rolls. Unless, of course you make them into cinnamon rolls--but yikes! Let's not go there or these rolls won't get their chance to shine--or waft?





I got the recipe for these from my sister in law who is an amazing cook that I have long looked up to.

Becca's Dinner Rolls

1 Tablespoon yeast
1/2 cup lukewarm water
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup scalded milk (or just warm?)
1/2 cup butter
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
3 eggs
5-7 cups flour

Into a large mixing bowl/kitchenaid/bosch put the water and sugar and sprinkle the yeast on top. Proof--after five minutes it should be foamy.

While yeast is proofing, put the milk and butter into a saucepan and heat until butter is melted. (Question: Why are you supposed to scald the milk? My grandma's dinner roll recipe says to scald the milk, too, but I want to know why. And here is my little secret--I never do it. I just heat it up and melt the butter in it, but I don't really want it hotter than lukewarm because then I have to wait for it to cool and what a pain. But I wrote "scalded" milk in this recipe because that's what the recipe said and maybe there is a good reason to do it, but I just don't know it. If anyone knows, please enlighten me. It troubles me enough that I wrote this big, huge, long question about it in this post.) Cool to lukewarm if it is too hot.

Pour milk and butter mixture into the yeast mixture and add the salt and three eggs. Whisk or mix to combine until smooth.

Add 5 cups of the flour and mix with the dough hook on low for a minute or two, until the dough is wet but not smooth. Allow to rest for five minutes. Then resume mixing with the dough hook on a medium speed. Keep adding flour as needed. The dough should be soft and sticky but should come together into a smooth ball as it mixes. I ended up using about 6 cups of flour. Mix for about 7 minutes.

Remove the hook and cover the bowl with a towel and allow the dough to rise until double. (An hour, maybe?)

Butter a jelly roll pan and preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Punch down the dough and scoop it together. Using a serrated knife, cut off chunks of dough, about the size of a golf ball, or a tad larger. Shape into balls and place on the buttered pan in rows, not quite touching each other.

Allow to rise for another 15 to 30 minutes until double in size. Bake at 350 degrees for 12 to 15 minutes, or until turning golden on top.

Immediately inhale ten or more, if you are like me and have no self control or shame. Or be good and eat just one. (Is that even possible?)