Brooke's Recipes

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Shashlik (Wiki)

The marinate includes oil and is also used to baste the meat. This results in fires, hence the squirt bottle in the background.

This is a dish my mother made in the summer and cooked on the BBQ.

Here is a recipe: http://www.ifood.tv/recipe/lamb-and-zucchini-shashlik-with-lemon-and-tarragon

5 Minute Bread

This is based on the book:
Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day by Jeff Hertzberg & Zoe Francois, ISBN-13: 978-0-312-36291-1 (1^st edition) (@Amazon.com)
and this is my very first attempt at it.  Web page: ArtisanBreadInFive.com
In the FAQ section of their web page I asked about a dough that incorporates onions, was there some reason that they did not do that.
Zoe answered that was a great idea and might be in their next book.  Note that in this book onions are used as a topping, not in the dough.
I'll make up my own onion dough and let you know how it works.

Fig 2: 5 Minute Bread Just After Mixing Dough Sterilite Ultra-seal 8.1 At Bowl.

In fig 2 above the dough is shown just after mixing: 3 cups warm water (half at room temp and half from an electric hot pot at 203° F, final temp just over 100° F) 2 packets yeast 1-1/2 tablespoons Kosher (or coarse) salt 6-1/2 cups flour (I'm using bread flour, but the book says all purpose flour) Mixed (not kneaded) with wooden spoon.

Fig 3: After sitting 2 hours

In Fig 3 above you can see that  the dough has doubled in size (has risen) after sitting at room temp for a couple of hours.  Then it's covered (I drilled a small (6-32 tap drill) hole drilled into it to relieve the pressure).

Fig 4: Just formed Ball on Peel

In Fig 4 above after sitting in the refrigerator overnight and just after turning on the oven for 450 F bake, the top of the dough was lightly floured and my hands, a piece of dough pulled up and cut off with a serrated blade knife and formed into a ball.  The balance of the dough goes back into the refrigerator with the lid on.  Not kneaded, this too about a couple of minutes of time.  In the background is a spare oven shelf that will be used to cool the bread after baking.  Now to wait 40 minutes for the bread to rise and the oven to warm. Cold Oven PS After my electric wall mounted GE oven beeped to say "I'm at temperature" it turned out to be over 100 F cold.  Replacing the temperature probe was a waste of $100.  The fix was to calibrate the temperature (the installer should have done this): Press Bake Press up arrow to get the desired temp over 500 F and then immediately press and hold BAKE for a couple of seconds the display switches to the CAL number, 0 in my case. now pressing UP or DN changes the CAL number and for me it needed to be 25. Used a Fluke 87V Digital Multimeter with the type-K thermocouple probe to determine the temperature since the new oven thermometer I bought is off 25 F based on the Fluke which is specified to be good to 1 F.

Fig 5: Done in Oven A friend tried to reheat a pizza that had been stored on Al foil.  When he put the cold pizza on his stone the stone cracked in half.  So don't put cold items on a hot stone, only room temp items. Note: Stone is in center of oven with pan below.  This did not work as well as see below)

In Fig 5 above the bread is done after about 50 minutes (book says till crust brown aprox. 30 minutes).  A cup of hot water was poured into shallow pan on bottom of oven just before closing door to make steam to keep crust from forming thus allowing more expansion.

Fig 6: Done

Note absence of large holes.  Crust is crispy and it tastes great.  The center is moist and overall very tasty.  Now for another slice!

Table of Doughs

Dough Name	pg	Product
Boule	26
Pain d'Epi Wheat Stalk	41
European Peasant	46
Tapenade	55
Deli-Style Rye	58
Limpa	65
Pumpernickel	67
Bran-Enriched White	72
Light Whole Wheat	74
100% Whole Wheat	76
Whole Wheat inspired by Chris Kimball	78
Italian Semolina	80
Bora (Corn Bread)	82
English Granary-Style	91
Oatmeal	94
Oatmeal Pumpkin	100
Oat Flour	104
Vermont Cheddar This recipe weighs 4.5 pounds comnpared to Boule recipe which weight 4 pounds. To get 1/4 of the dough out of the container from the refrigerator I lifted all the dough up and cut it in half, then cut one of the halfs in half.  That works much better than trying to grap a hunk. Some cheese melts and sticks to the stone, a bread knife will seperate the loaf. It seems the bread weight is the weight of the ingredients excluding the water.  Note the pizza stone is on the bottom shelf and the pan for the water is at the top.  This works much better, i.e. the cooking time matches the book. A bread knife is needed to cut the bread free of the stone since the cheese melts them together. Instead of just making a shallow cut the cut was almost all the way through the ball of dough just prior to putting it into the oven.  You can see in the photo at left the wide areas where the cut was made.   Next time I'll make four cuts that are almost all the way though to all for more expansion in the oven. Vermont Cheddar Bread Pizza One half  a 10 oz package of sliced white mushrooms sauted in about a tablespoon of olive oil and then a 3.8 oz can of sliced olives added to the saute pan, not to saute but to coat with the oil. After 1/4 of the boule dough batch was rolled flat and allowed to sit for an hour it was topped with: half a 15 oz can of Contadina Pizza Sauce, half a 16 oz package of shredded Mozzarella cheese, the olives and mushrooms and a pinch of Italian seasoning.  Didn't add water to the oven and the bottom crust was nice and crisp. Second pizza made from VT Cheddar dough. Photo before baking 15 min @ 450 F. No problem getting the pizza to slide off the peel when plenty of corn meal was used.  In the past you could see a lot of wood through the corn meal.  This time maybe 50% coverage so thick you can't see wood through it. Also came off pizza stone easily because a lot of the corn meal got transferred to the stone. BUT, when removing the pizza the corn meal is now on the kitchen floor making it very slippery.  Time to vacuum the kitchen floor!	106
Spinach Feta	110
Granola	114
Roasted Garlic Potato	118
Eastern European Potato-Rye	120
Bagel (same as Boule dough plus sugar) See below videos for Onion dough made starting with Bagel dough. 8 x 4" bread pan 9 x 5" Bread Pan dough covered with olive oil and plastic wrap (27 May 2010) 1-1/2 pounds after baking.	122
Montreal Bagel	129
Olive Oil	134
Sweet Provencal Flatbread w/Anise Seeds	157
Pine Nut-Studded Polenta Flatbread	159
Ksra (Moroccan Anise & Barley Flatbread	170
Challah	180
Brioche	189
Panettone	201
Soft American-Style White	204
Buttermilk	207
Chocolate	211
Sunflower Seed	217
Chocolate-Raisin Babka	221

Table of Products

Combined Artisan Bread in Five Minutes & Peter Reinhart's Artisan Breads Every Day

In Peter's book it mentions that slower fermenting (lower temperature and more time) results in more flavor also that some kneading helps.  So made the normal Boule receipie except the water at 80 deg F instead of 100 deg F and kneading by hand for a minute or so.  Also made 2 pound loaf (have the receipe batch) instead of a 1 pund loaf.  This loaf was formed the day after mixing with a small amount of kneading and left to rise after coating with olive oil and coverning (not wrapping) with plastic wrap.

2# loaf of slow feremnt bread after sitting for an hour. Olive oil coated and with corn meal on pizza peel.

2# loaf of slow ferment bread after cooking about 50 minutes at 425 F.  Note the cuts were made just after putting the dough in the oven and were close to cross cuts.  But you can see that the bread expanded to the point of breaking the outer crust so the cuts might better have been more along the length of the bread. A slice of this bread can be toasted, i.e. it's big enough to not get lost in the toaster.  It can also make a small sandwich.

Charlie's Baked Slamon

1. turn the oven on to 400F.

2. Take out the Salmon fillet and place it in a large peace of aluminum foil. (large enough to fold it so when cooking no juice leaks)

3. season with salt and pepper.

4. spray a healthy dose of "butter" on both sides of the fish.

5. season with a dose of dried onions and grounded garlic.
6. sprinkle shreaded Romano cheese over top

6. place in oven for 40min.  DO NOT PLACE ON PIZZA STONE, the cold food on the hot stone may cause it to break.

7. check to see if the middle of the fish is cooked all the way... if not heat for another 5 minutes.

Chicken Cordon Bleu

Julia Child Beef Bourguignon 

I watched her cooking show on TV and my family made Beef Bourguignon on a number of occasions.  This Oct. 2013 batch was made using a recipe from the internet that was not clearly written.  Rather than link it I'll say what was actually done.

	Prepared Raw Ingredients 10 oz bag of white or gold Pearl Onions, blanched (Wiki) and skinned. 6 oz of 1/4" Thick Cut Bacon cut into 1" squares 1 carrot diagonally sliced 1 onion sliced 1 lb of mushrooms stem end cut off and quartered 3 lbs chuck roast beef cut into 1-1/2" cubes PS the Blender was just on the counter, not used here.
	First Stage Sauteed Ingredients (bacon, beef, carrots & onion) The Burton 6200 Induction Cook Top was used at 210 or 250 deg F to sauté (Wiki).. You can deglaze (Wiki) the pan by pouring some wine and using the spatula to loosen. This is dumped into the crock pot. A common problem is overloading the fry pan and that does not allow the steam to rise resulting in hot water at the bottom thus changing a sauté into stewing.  So keep plenty of air space around each bit of food.
	First Stage Sauteed Ingredients in crock pot on Low. Plus: Second Stage Sauteed Ingredients I remember using a large pan on the stove top when making Beef Bourguignon, but there was a problem because even at the lowest flame the liquid would boil away burning the remaining food.  I think the internet Recipes are saying to use the oven as a way that most people can use, BUT . . . the slow cooker (Wiki) or crock pot is the ideal cooking method for this dish. PS. cheese cloth was not used since it can leave cloth in the stew, instead the bouquet of herbs (Wiki) was done in the classical way is simply tying them in a bunch using:
	Final Beef Bourguignon served with slotted spoon so you can see cooked Ingredients. Normally served with a regular large spoon so you get the juices. Just stepping into the house will make you hungry.

Vegetable Sandwiches

It turns out that I very much like these.  They also are low fat so good for my diet.  (:

Pickle

Just sliced pickle on bread.

Tomato & Onion

Mayo on bread, salt and pepper, then thinly sliced tomato and onion.

Olives, Water Curing

See video of 2013 Olive Harvest and having them pressed into olive oil.
In 2016 some olives were picked a week before the normal harvest so be processed into table olives.  This is done by making a cut all the way around the olive to the pit and soaking them in plain water.  It's important to keep any olives from floating up and contacting air, so a plastic zip-lock bag filled with water is being used as a weight.

Olive Rake THE best way to get olives off trees 9 tines each about 0.325" diameter. Spacing between tines varies from 0.218 at bar to 0.377" at tips.

2 weeks after starting there are bubbles This photo taken at 3 weeks. Taste test says they need more time, but editable

Weight Loss

Based on the book:  How to become a Down-Sizer!: Five Easy-to-Follow Steps to What it Really Takes to Control Your Weight (ISBN: 978-0-9720253-3-1) & a 35 mg tablet of Phendimetrazine Wiki  (under doctor's care) each morning.  Business called "Weight No More".

The 5 Down-Sizer points:
1. limit fat to 20 (30 for  me) grams per day.
2. Exercise 30 minutes every other day.
3. Portion control, a serving is only as much as you can hold in your hand.
4. Don't skip meals.
5. Avoid simple carbohydrates and refined sugars.

I've been doing this since 2006 and it works.

Books

I've been using:
Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day by Jeff Hertzberg & Zoe Francois, ISBN-13: 978-0-312-36291-1 (1^st edition) (@Amazon.com)
for a number of batches and everyone who's tried the bread likes it very much.

After watching Jamie Oliver on TED Talks (Jamie Oliver's TED Prize wish: Teach every child about food) I got his book:
jamie's dinners: the essential family cookbook, ISBN 1-4013-0194-0 ( @Amazon ), but have not yet tried any of the recipes.

While reading the reviews of Jamie Oliver's books on Amazon read a reference to Jacques Pepin: Fast Food My Way, ISBN 0-618-39312-9 ( @Amazon ) and have used his potato cooking method a few times (pg 108) which combines microwave and conventional oven cooking.  Now need to learn more about baking potato vs. boiling potato.

Another TED Talk about food is "Peter Reinhart on bread".  It's about how to make a whole grain bread taste good.  "Spent Grain Bread"
The book below includes info on how to start the bacteria that give sourdough bread it's flavor.
Peter Reinhart's Artisan Breads Every Day, ISBN-10: 1580089984 ( @Amazon )

From Chapter 2 Sourfough & Eild Yeast Fundamentals (pg 35)
	This is made from what amounts to flour and water.  No sitting outside (it's covered with plastic wrap). The left batch made from high gluten bread flour and the right batch from all purpose flour. 3-1/2 tablespoons flour + 1/4 cup unsweetened pineapple juice (pg 38)
	You can see the phase 3 leftover starter in the open containers and on the inside of the plastic wrap.  It's very bubbly, sticky and oily even though it's made from flour and water. The phase 4 culture is a ball of dough in the plastic containers about the size of a soft ball.  It took some hand kneading to incorporate all the flour.
After letting the starter sit in the refrigerator overnight and cutting off 1/3 cup to make a starter for a loaf of bread, the starter mix did not rise after 6 hours. The fix was to let it sit overnight out on the counter and today it has risen and now mixed with more flour, water and salt to make my first loaf of sourdough.
	Jun 5, 2010 2 pm - my first sourdough loaf rising under a kitchen towel as the oven heats.
	Note that the bread has expanded due soley to the bacteria (no yeast was used).  It has a special (good) flavor very different from a yeast bread. After cooling it is apparant this was a failure.  The bread is way too dense.  Next batch will be a "mixed" load, i.e. in addition to the natrual starter yeast will be added.
	Mixed sourdough bread made using bacteria and yeast.

A friend and neighbor recommended this book and was using it to make a great pizza.
Foods of the World: Recipes:The Cooking of Italy, ASIN: B000C1VU0Q, ( @Amazon )

Appliances

It turns out that I rarely use the main kitchen oven.  Instead the microwave oven or the Frigidaire toaster oven is more convenient and surely uses less power.   In a similar manner the Burton induction cook top is chosen over the gas surface burners because of the ability to control temperature.  This means that a functioning kitchen can be made with a refrigerator, microwave oven, induction cook top and toaster oven.  The limitations are:
1. can only run one of the cooking devices at a time since they draw a lot of current (or you need separate electrical circuits),
2. can only cook for one or two people, not for large groups

Can Opener

Rosle Smooth Edge Can Opener ( @Amazon ) works by cutting from the side of the can thus leaving no sharp edges and allowing the lid to be reseated.

Toaster

My center heating elements in  my old toaster quit working, thus cooking the outside faces of the toast and leaving the center faces uncooked.  I was not able to see an easy way to repair it so got a new toaster, but the new toaster has 10" long slots and so will accept the wide sliced french bread I like for sandwiches.   Brand name t-Fal.  So far I've only used the bread toasting and bagel toasting functions so don't have anything to say about reheat or defrost functions.

Toaster Oven

Toastmaster	Frigidaire FPTO06D7MS

When looking for the toaster (above) I also considered a toaster oven but liked the long slice capability of the above unit.  But in the process noticed that toaster ovens are handy for things that can not be cooked in a regular toaster, like heating garlic bread.  So I got a very small toaster oven on multiple sales at Kohl's for about $10 and would be using it today except as part of the holiday season of 2012 Costco put on sale a Frigidaire FPTO06D7MS toaster oven that will cook a 12" pizza and includes convection cooking for under $100 including shipping.  Today I saw what appears to be the same oven advertized by Williams Sonoma as the Breville Countertop Convection Oven for $250 discounted from $380 list price and Kohl's also sells the Frigidaire unit for $170 (but that's before their discount card, 30% off would bring it to $120).

PS Although the Frigidaire claims to be a toaster, it does not do as good a job as the long slice toaster.  Maybe there's some magic setting that will work, but it's much easier to use the real toaster.

Elite Cuisine Hot Dog Cooker  EHD051R

Got this on a whim.  Model EHD-051R.  It has heated rollers to cook the dogs and will hold 4 the Hebrew National Jumbo Beef Franks (4 ea. 12 Oz).  The bun warmer probably will hold 4 regular sized buns (not hoagie rolls).  The On/Off switch controls the motor that turns the rollers and a timer controls how long the dogs cook.  For the above franks 15 to 20 minutes seems to work.  The buns come out warm and soft, not dried out.
See video below.

There was a problem with the bun warmer tray coming unhooked from the door.  The cause was too much friction between the tray an the slots on either side.  The fix was to put a very small amount of Lube Gel (silicon grease) on the Teflon sleeves that were supposed to reduce the friction, but were not and the slots.  Also a slight amount of bending of the wire tray and now it works OK.

YouTube Videos

Links