Dry, so very dry

Chicken breast is one of the most dry meats ever. It is also ubiquitous in American dishes.  Through purchasing prepared deli dishes, I learned that you can meal prep with seasoned raw chicken and it will be juicy after microwaving the completed dish for 4-5 min. I’ve been doing the same thing with fish and it works great as well.  I’m too scared to try pork or beef for now.

Power Bowl Knock Off

There is a line of frozen power bowls that I've been obsessed with for years now. Because of the pandemic, I minimize trips inside the grocery store. Unfortunately, that means I haven't been able to buy the power bowls for a while. I've been making more food lately because of the meal prep I've been doing in lieu of purchasing the microwave meals from the deli. More about that later. 

 So, the bowl I made was a version of the sausage and barley bowl with sweet potatoes and a creamy garlic sauce. I bought chicken apple saussage and sliced it into coins. Then I cut up a sweet potato into quarters. Heh, this dish sounds rich, doesn't it? Anyway, I cooked barley in the instant pot with two cloves of garlic and chicken stock because I skipped on the creamy garlic sauce.  I put everything into a microwavable container and added a HUGE handful of pre-washed leafy greens.  When ready to eat, I just grab it out of the fridge and microwave for 3 min. 

 Learning for me was to precook the sweet potato. The quick 3 min zap doesn't do enough to cook the sweet potato.  It is still a rock hard hunk of rawness. 

Christmas Brioche

 Yay!!! It was successful. I am so happy after 10+ hours of working on this loaf, it turned out. I watched a video on how to make brioche with way more instructions than the visually aesthetic video from the Food Network. 

This video, although long and not produced well, was extremely informative.

https://youtu.be/RZBuJ4_LdDk

I used this recipe https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/classic-brioche-recipe this time around.  A couple things I did differently from last time. First, I mixed the dough for more than 10 min before adding the butter to develop the gluten a little further.  I beat and slightly flattened the room temp butter before incorporating it into the dough 1 tablespoon at a time. The dough was super soft and goopy and I did not add extra flour. Then I divided the dough and colored it prior to refrigeration.  It was very difficult to mix the dye into the dough because the dough was so soft and sticky. I refrigerated the dough overnight and rolled out each ball of dough. It was still sticky after a night of cooling!  I didn’t work the dough too much, but I stacked the three layers and rolled it up.  I made sure to have the white dough on the outside, so that I could have a good read on the level of browning.  Last time, I put the purple dough on the exterior/ bottom of the stack and it was so hard to tell if the dough was browning or burning.

Then came more patience....Last time I proofed the dough for an hour and it didn’t seem to rise much.  This time, the new directions stated to let the dough rise an inch beyond the loaf pan.  That took about two hours in a very warm spot between 2 crockpots.   I pressed the dough to check to see if it had overproofed.   Nope, the dough sprung back!  This time I diluted the egg wash with water and it helped reduce the amount of browning and cracking in the final product.  Additionally, I baked the loaf at 375F in convection mode for 40 min without peeking.  That was unintentional, I was supposed to check after 20, but I read the directions incorrectly.  So, 40 min later and the timer went off and the top of my brioche was a dark brown. It was just like the picture in the recipe.  I temped the product to be sure and it was above 190F.  Success!!!

And for the cross section:

Yea, okay the big bubble that is in the middle of the loaf bothers me a little, but I’m never going to make this type of bread again (if I did, I would punch down the dough and do a double proof or add milk powder to help even out the cell structure).  What a pain in the butt it is to make.  The result is like eating a stick of flavorless butter. Not worth the effort...but I proved it could do it.  It also looks super cool.

Merry Christmas!

Gingerbread cookies

 I have yet to find the perfect gingerbread cookie recipe.  It is driving me crazy. My first attempt this year yielded a dry and crumbly “dough.” This was Alex’s recipe from forever ago. I had tried it once in the past but forgot what adjustments I made to make it workable. This time, it would not form and I ended up throwing it away. This was after I let it sit and let it hydrate, I added water to see if that would work.... It smelled lovely through. 

*went back and read an old blog post and apparently Alex’s recipe never worked for me. https://mmmpork.blogspot.com/2010/12/you-cant-catch-me.html

Second round was this week. I tried the King Arther gingerbread cookie recipe. The dough came together very nicely. Instead of dirtying a pot, I put everything in a microwaveable bowl and melted the butter using the microwave. I changed around some the spices to match the ratio of the first recipe. As with all the warnings plastered all over the reviews and recipe, the dough was incredibly sticky even after a night in the freezer. The cookies are soft and addictive, especially after some royal icing. I just need to find a recipe where the cookie is just as tasty, but the dough is easier to work with during the rolling process. https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/gingerbread-cookies-recipe

Since the dough was so difficult to work, I rolled little balls and made thumbprint cookies.  Wetting my finger tips helped reduce sticking when pressing down the cookies.

Leftover royal icing

 I had a bunch of royal icing left over, so I tinted some colors and went back to decorating.

Ugly sweater snowmen.

Too much time spent on a gingerbread house.

I made these look goooood

 I made some failed sugar cookies for Halloween, so I went back to the Joy of Cooking recipe again. This is such a nice dough to work with, but quite bland. Definitely need to add lemon zest next time.  The shapes were super nice and the lines were crisp. I made royal icing for the first time in a while and this recipe from Sweetopia is amazing. Definitely a keeper. 

https://sweetopia.net/2012/01/royal-icing-recipe-free-illustrated-recipe/

It takes a while to make, but let the mixer do all the work.  I wanted to get vibrant colors and went crazy with the food coloring in the cookie dough and the icing. I am so very pleased with the results.  I’ll have to do this again when I have time/patience. 

Cookies are decorated and waiting to dry overnight.

One eyed snowman with my famous hot cocoa. I’ll have to put together a recipe in the future. 

Elf Elf Baby

 I watch Elf every Christmas season and today I accompanied the movie tradition with Elf cookies! 

 

How fun are these cookies?! Bonus: you can eat these raw because the recipe includes heat treated flour and pasteurized eggs. 

Even though no one reads this blog, I have to add a disclaimer that I work for General Mills and they manufacture these Elf cookies under the Pillsbury brand. 

Most of it was edible...

 Purchased the heat and eat dinner from Whole Foods again this year.  The turkey was so dry!!!  I’m going to have to figure something else out for Christmas dinner.  Maybe I’ll buy turkey parts instead of a whole turkey. The rolls were a bit of a fail as well.  They got over proofed and ended up collapsing. Aye ya!  At least the fool proof corn soufflé turned out well.  

That being said, I’m grateful to be able to have the means and a family to have a nice thanksgiving. 

 

Magic in a Cup

 Seriously, when large food corporations want to get it together, here’s what can happen:

Alright, so the actual product doesn’t taste as good as my version, but good enough that two of three cups ended up empty. 

First attempt at pancake art

 I tried making pancake art for the first time today and it went a lot better than expected. I mixed up some Bisquik with more water than usual and beat the batter smooth. This is usually a no no since more mixing means more gluten development which means tough pancakes. The batter was split into two colors, orange and brown. The brown was colored with cocoa. The key to pancake art is low heat, start depositing batter in the interior, slowly work outwards and a lot of patience. Yes, after one batch, I’m officially a pancake artist. 

Behold the Halloween pancake breakfast. 

It's just a bunch of Hocus Pocus anyway

I'm back...for now. 

I was sent this super cool looking rainbow brioche recipe back during the summer  https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/food-network-kitchen/rainbow-brioche-8532473

In celebration of all hallows Eve, I attempted to make a brioche loaf that was Halloween colored. Bette Midler hosted a Hocus Pocus e-union that was a fundraiser. My hope was to be able to make some sand-witches for movie night. The reunion was totally amazing!! But, it turns out the bread was an epic fail, not enough flour, old yeast, not enough bake time, wrong type of pan, or not enough mixing to get the gluten going.  It was super dense and raw. I’ll give the recipe another shot during the Christmas season. The loaf ended up looking super cool though!

I also made some brownies that were inspired by “Boooook!”

Something Fishy

When we were in Los Cabos, I ate fish taco three times during our long weekend there.  First time was at Zippers, a cafe on the beach.  Second was room service at the resort.  Lovely presentation!  And finally, my favorite was oddly enough at the airport from Boston Dogs.  Fresh and delicious!

Lunch Break

Slow day at work today, so I decided to go out for lunch.  Went to Three Tarts bakery based on a coworker's recommendation.  I ate an adult grilled cheese sandwich that was ooey gooey goodness with caramelized onions and bacon!  The pumpkin spice cupcake gave the NYC bakery a good run for it's money.