For Pita Sake

I found this recipe for pita bread on the blog Bakin' and Eggs. The original recipe called for 1 cup of whole wheat flour and 2 cups of bread flour. I had the bread flour, but no whole wheat flour. I thought foolishly enough that I would swap out the wheat for all purpose.

As I was kneading the dough I kept wondering why it was so sticky and difficult. Duh. Whole wheat flour is a much drier flour. Don't make the same mistake that I did and swap out the two different flours. You'll probably end up being an unhappy camper like I was.

The directions say to place the rolled out disks of dough directly onto the oven rack. I did this with the first one and it just oozed through the rack and onto the oven floor. No good. I imagine that it was because the dough was too wet.

Mrblocko suggested that we cover the oven rack with foil. (Ideas like this are why I really keep him around, but shhh...don't tell him that.) This worked great. No gloopy pita dough on the oven floor.

The bread was taking forever to cook though. I'm sure this was due to the water content in the dough. I cranked the heat up to 550 degrees and baked the pitas for 5 minutes on each side. The pitas never got that nice golden hue, and they didn't puff up as much as I thought they should have.
Once the pitas were cooked enough, they were quite tasty. Blockette even asked for a PPPBJ (Pita Pocket Peanut Butter Jelly) the next day for lunch. I'll be making these again, but not until I get some Whole Wheat flour.

Whole wheatish Pita Bread from Bakin' and Eggs
1 (1/4-ounce) package active dry yeast (2 1/2 teaspoons)
1 teaspoon honey
1 1/4 cups warm water (105–115 degrees F), divided
2 cups bread flour or high-gluten flour, plus additional for kneading
1 cup whole-wheat flour
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
Cornmeal for sprinkling baking sheets

In a large bowl, stir yeast, honey and 1/2 c warm water. Let stand until foamy, about 5 min. If mixture does not foam, start over with new yeast. While yeast mix stands, stir flours in another bowl. Whisk 1/2 c flour mix into yeast mix til smooth. Cover with plastic wrap and let stand in a draft-free/warm place (I like to use my oven – I turn it on for about a minute to get it warm – about 80-82F and then turn it off and place dough in oven) til doubled in bulk and bubbly, 45 min.

Stir in oil, salt, remaining 3/4 c warm water and remaining 2 1/2 c flour mix til dough forms. Either turn dough out onto a floured surface and knead, working in just enough flour to keep dough from sticking, or use a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook and on low speed to knead until dough is smooth and elastic, 8-10 min. Form dough into a ball and place in a large oiled bowl, turning once to coat. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let dough rise in draft-free/warm place until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour.

Prepare 2 baking sheets by sprinkling with cornmeal. Punch down dough and cut into 8 pieces. Form each piece into a ball, flatten the ball and then roll out into a 7-inch round on floured surface with a floured rolling pin. Transfer round to prepared baking sheet. Make 7 more rounds in same manner, arranging them on baking sheets. Loosely cover pitas with clean kitchen towels (not terry cloth) and let stand at room temperature 30 minutes.

Adjust oven rack to the lower third of oven and remove other racks (I left the other racks). Preheat oven to 500F. Transfer 4 pitas, 1 at a time, directly onto oven rack (alternatively, I think you could bake these on a preheated baking stone so they don’t get wire marks from the oven). Bake until puffed and pale golden, about 2 minutes. Turn over with tongs and bake 1 minute more.

Cool pitas on a cooling rack 2 minutes, then stack and wrap loosely in a kitchen towel to keep pitas warm. Bake remaining 4 pitas in same manner. Serve warm.

Yield: 8 pitas

Mediterranean Red Lentil Soup

I found this recipe on a blog called A Pot of Tea and a biscuit. The original recipe was called Turkish Red Lentil Soup. Since I added Italian sausage and both Italy and Turkey are on the Mediterranean sea I saw fit to rename my version, Mediterranean Red Lentil Soup.

Blockette has been especially contrary this week and proclaimed she didn't like it before she even tasted it. Too bad for her because Mrblocko and I thought this soup was awesome. I'll be making this soup again. When I do, I'll just be sure to stop at the craft store to get extra strong Velcro for her to keep her hand stuck to her forehead with minimal effort. How could I have forgotten how tragically difficult it is to be 4.5!
Here's the recipe with my changes included:

Red Lentil Soup, Mediterranean style

1c red lentils, rinsed and cleaned
5 c stock (dealers choice. I used half chicken and half veg stock)
2 small onions, finely chopped
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 large Idaho potato,peeled diced and divided
1 medium size Yukon gold potato,diced (I left the skins on, but you can peel if you are averse to potato skins)
2 tsp paprika
3 carrots, cut into half moon coins
1 lb bulk Italian sausage
salt and pepper to taste

Place washed lentils in a large pot with stock, half of the Idaho potato and the paprika. Bring to a boil and simmer. While the stock is coming to a boil, crumble sausage in a skillet, leaving sausage pieces in small bite size chunks. Cook until sausage is browned. Remove the sausage from the pan and place on a paper towel to cool. Cook the onion and garlic in the sausage drippings until they are caramelized. Add the onions and garlic to the pot and reduce heat to a simmer. Loosely place a lid on the pot. Cook for about 20-30 minutes, or until the lentils are tender.

While the soup is simmering, in a smaller pot, cook the remaining diced potatoes and carrots until they are fork tender. (I like my carrots to have a tiny bit of crunch, so I fished those out first.) Once the carrots and potatoes are cooked, drain and set them aside.

Once your lentils have finished cooking, remove the pot from the heat. Place all but 1-2 cups of this mixture in a blender and pulse briefly. Be careful not to burn yourself as this mixture will be hot. Return the blended and reserved soup to the large pot over medium heat. Add the carrots, potatoes and crumbled sausage to the pot as well. Reheat uncovered until the soup is warm. Makes about 5 servings.

No frills crock pot veggie stock

I mention, in this post, how I use a chicken carcass and my crockpot to make chicken stock. Then I thought...hmmm...I bet I could do the same thing with vegetables and make veggie stock. I realize that I have poo-poo-ed Vegetable stock in the past, but that was the boxed variety. Usually the homemade versions just about anything are tastier than the prepackaged stuff.

So, I did a search on the handy dandy Internet and found this recipe on suite101.com, this one from Tiffin box, and this one from of all places, a site called Vegetarian slow cooker. The three recipes were quite similar. The basic differences are that the first recipe contains leeks and tomatoes, the second has fennel bulb and chili peppers, while the third adds potatoes and apples.
OK, so I didn't have any of those things, but someday I plan on trying each of those recipes. I'm especially interested in how much heat the pepper would bring to the stock, and if the stock with the apple is sweet. Here is what I ended up doing to make the veggie stock:

Mrsblocko's No Frills Veggie Stock
3 small carrots
3 ribs celery
1 bunch of green onions
1 small onion
3 cloves garlic
2 bay leaves
10 peppercorns
1 tsp each thyme, rosemary and parsley

Cut everything into large chunks. Place all ingredients in a 5 qt slowcooker. Cover with water. Cook on high 4-5 hours or low 8-10 hours. I cooked mine on high for 4 hours then kept it on warm all night. Strain stock in a cheesecloth. Squeeze out as much liquid as you can from the veggies. There's a lot of good flavors lingering in the veggies.

The container on the left is homemade chicken stock and the one on the right is the homemade vegetable stock. It's pretty easy to tell which one is which. I think if I used the onion skins in the vegetable stock it would result in a darker broth.

I asked Mrblocko to give me his opinion on the stock and he said it tasted like the chicken stock without any salt or fat. No matter how much I skim the fat off the top of the chicken stock, some of it always remains. There is also salt that leaches into the chicken stock from the seasonings that are put on the chicken before it is roasted. Out of the two stocks, the chicken stock is less healthy, and is clearly going to taste better. Let's face it, fat and salt are tasty villains.

I'm by no means saying that this vegetable stock wasn't tasty, it's just that the chicken stock is tastier. The good thing is that most of the time I use stock is in sauces and in soups, so the stock has lots of other flavors to back it up. Other than the color, I doubt we'll be able to tell the difference. It's good to know that if I don't have a chicken, or it's too hot to roast one, I can still make some tasty homemade stock.

Belated Thankful Thursday 3

I've been having difficulties accessing Blogger so this is a few days late.

I'm thankful that:
1. Spring is technically here even if it is Cold/Snowing.
2. Spring break is only a week long.
3. Blockette is actually listening...better than expected for a 4 year old.
4. I don't have a occupation in the medical field.
5. I found the quilting needle I thought one of the cats ate.
6. I didn't find the needle with my foot.
7. My mom is here!!!!

A very un-Swedish Swedish meal

I'm pretty sure that I've joked about what we considered a Swedish meal when I was growing up. It was always something devoid of color, and often times flavor. When I served up this meal of fish, cauliflower and buttered noodles, Mrblocko looked at me and said, "Having a Swedish meal tonight, are we?"

Colorwise, this meal may have been monochromatic, but in the flavor department? Man, it was kaleidoscopic. Kapow!

The fish was spicy tilapia from Florida Coastal cooking. The recipe says to use 2 fillets, but I used 3 and increased the spice blend by half to account for the extra fillet. I used all that spice blend on the 3 fillets. Um...that was a bit much for Blockette and myself. Had I read the recipe correctly I would have realized that you only use half of the spice blend on the fish.

I scraped off most of the spice blend on our fish. Of course Mrblocko thought the spice was just right. My throat was quite raw at the time from a cold and the capsaicin from the spices felt like someone ripped off my skin and stuck it over an open flame. The flavor was good though. Next time I'll make the spice blend and use it a tad more sparingly.

The Cauliflower was actually Roasted Cauliflower with paprika and cocoa from the blog Karen Cooks. I'm sure with a blog title like that she is a lovely person who is practically perfect in every way...just like Mary Poppins. I really liked this dish. I liked it a lot. Mrblocko and Blockette...well, they thought it was just ok.

Mrblocko is not a lover of cauliflower. I always forget this. He did say that he would eat this particular preparation of the veggie in tandem with the fish and noodles again. He said it wasn't bad if he ate the meat, veggie and noodles all together. I can work with that.

This was the first time I'd used smoked paprika. I went out and bought it specifically for this dish. I only wish that I had gone and done that sooner. Anytime a recipe called for smoked paprika, I just used the plain kind. No more. People I am telling you, smoked paprika is the bomb. It has rocked my little world.

The next time I make the roasted cauliflower I'll use less cocoa and paprika. The recipe called for a tablespoon of each. I don't know if I got a itty bitty cauliflower or what, but the spices coated the veggie so much they were a dark reddish brown. If you look at the original photo on the Karen Cooks blog it's dark more from the roasting than the spices.

Also the recipe said to cook the cauliflower for 30 minutes. Maybe because I cut my florets into bite size pieces, they cooked much faster. After 20 minutes in the oven, they had lost almost all of their crunch. I like my veggies al dente, so they have a bit of a bite to them. 15 minutes might be a better cook time for my tastes.

Spicy Tilapia from Florida Coastal Cooking
1 Tbsp EVOO
1 Tbsp light butter (I used Land O' Lakes light butter with canola oil)
2 tilapia fillets

Spice Mix:(You will have a little left over, but it's good so use it on your eggs or something.)
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon ground red pepper
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Cooking spray
Juice of 1/2 lime (optional)

Preheat broiler and mix your spice mix together in a small bowl. Melt butter and oil in microwave for 25 sec til liquidy. Dip fish fillets in and rub both sides with about 1/2 to 3/4 spice mix. Spray a baking pan with EVOO spray and place fillets in. Broil 5 min, flip and broil another 5 min. (Keep an eye on them because depending on how far your fish is from the heating element it will cook faster or slower accordingly.) Remove from broiler, and pour lime juice over fillets.

Roasted Cauliflower with smoked paprika and cocoa powder from Karen Cooks
1 Head Cauliflower
few T olive oil to coat veggies
1 T smoked Paprika
1 T Cocoa powder

Cut cauliflower into medium florets and seasoned with salt and pepper. Put on a baking sheet and tossed them w olive oil. Sprinkle smoked paprika and cocoa powder over cauliflower. Bake 425F for 30 min.

Cheater crockpot chicken n dumplings

I've never been a big fan of chicken and dumplings. It had been years and years since I tried it, I figured I should give the dish another shot. Besides...this recipe was sooo easy. It's one of those dump and go recipes. Chicken, butter, onion water and cream of chicken soup all hop into the crockpot. Then, about an hour before serving you tear up biscuits in a can and toss them into the slowcooker. Yeah. I'm all about that.

The dish was actually good. I thought it was a little salty and on the thick side. The recipe doesn't tell you how much water to add. It just says, cover ingredients with water. I used my 5 quart crock pot and 4 soup cans filled with water. Mrblocko liked the thickness and saltiness, and told me not to add any extra water next time. I'm going to add one more can of water, just to see, and because I am a stinker that way.

The recipe didn't say how big to make the dumplings. I made mine on the small side...about the size of a marshmallow. I wanted them to be bite size for Blockette. Also, my biscuit cans were 7.5 oz each . The recipe suggests using 10 oz cans, but I don't think the dish was lacking in dumplings. I thought the chicken to dumpling ratio was perfect. Then again, what do I know about chicken and dumplings. I'm just going off of what I liked.

I also added 5 small carrots, sliced into thin coins, and 2 cloves minced garlic when I tossed in the biscuit bits. I wanted more of a one pot meal. The carrots and garlic gave a nice addition to the flavor. I think some frozen cut green beans might be another great addition to the dish, and a good way to add another veggie.

click here for the recipe.

Crockpot Chicken and Dumplings from Lynn's Kitchen Adventures
4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
2 tablespoons butter
2 (10.75 ounce) cans condensed cream of chicken soup
1 onion, finely diced
2 (10 ounce) packages refrigerated biscuit dough, torn into pieces

Place the chicken, butter, soup, and onion in a slow cooker, and fill with enough water to cover. Cover, and cook for 5 to 6 hours on High. About 1 hour before serving, place the torn biscuit dough in the slow cooker. Cook until the dough is no longer raw in the center.

Pretty much from scratch spaghetti dinner

This was only almost homemade because well, I didn't grow my own veggies or make my own noodles. Other than that, this was about as from scratch as I get

The bread sticks were a recipe I found on My Kitchen Cafe. I was a little scared they wouldn't turn out because the dough was almost too sticky to knead. They got much less sticky after they were allowed to sit and rise.

I wasn't sure what size these bread sticks were supposed to be so I cut my dough and twisted 2 pieces together. These bread sticks were really thick. That was OK since we like to eat a lot of bread. If I was making them for a crowd I'd make them long and skinny.

I did, as you can see from the photo, over flour my work surface. The bread sticks have a lot of flour on them. I was afraid they would stick and was quite heavy handed with flouring the table. I think they needed a fair amount of flour to prevent stickage, just not quite as much as I used. Eventually, I'll find the happy medium for flouring my work surface.

Bread stick grade: B+. I'll make these again.


The baked-meatball recipe hailed from Crepes of Wrath. They would have been better if I followed the recipe. I used only 1 lb ground beef, omitting the ground pork. I didn't want oodles of meatballs. I thought an extra half of a pound of meat would be meat overkill. Mrblocko told me I had to add it next time because the thought the meatballs would have a more depth of flavor with the 2 types of meat. Yeah, he was right. I also screwed up and forgot to save some Parmesan cheese for the topping.
meatball grade: B with the potential for an A+ if I follow the directions next time.

Finally we have the tomato sauce with butter and onions from Smitten Kitchen.
This pasta sauce is one of those things that everyone on the food blogosphere has been raving about for quite some time. Perhaps it was all the hype, but I thought this sauce was just OK.

The sauce was on the acidic side, and I prefer a sweeter red sauce. I used a can of regular whole tomatoes, not San Marzano. I guess the San Marzano tomatoes are what really makes this dish. I had a hard time justifying the purchase of a can of these fancy tomatoes, when I can get 2 jars of pre-made pasta sauce for the same price. Should the San Marzano canned tomatoes ever go on sale, I'll pick up a can and give this recipe another try. I'll also add at least one clove of garlic. Red Sauce without garlic just ain't right.

We had to add Italian seasoning and lots of Parmesan cheese to counter act the acidity of the dish. I think it's worth giving the recipe another go when I feel like splurging on the fancy tomatoes.

Sauce grade: As is C+, but I'm sure it will be much tastier with the changes listed above.

Overall grade: B. I'll have to give all these recipes another whirl. I'm sure the meal will be even better the second time around.


Divine Breadsticks from Mel's Kitchen Cafe
1 ½ cup warm water
1 tablespoon yeast
2 tablespoons sugar
3 ½ cups flour
½ teaspoon salt
Butter for the pan

Mix all ingredients (except butter) and knead for 3 minutes. Let stand 10 min. Heat oven to 375F. Melt a few T butter on baking pan. Roll out dough about 1/8-inch thick and cut into strips. Place in butter and put close together. Sprinkle with garlic salt and parmesan cheese. Cover and let rise 30 min. Bake 20 min.

Baked Meatballs from Crepes of Wrath
1 pound ground beef
1/2 pound ground pork
1/2 cup Parmesan
1 egg
1 1/2 teaspoons dried or fresh (and finely chopped) basil
1 1/2 teaspoons dried or fresh (and finely chopped) parsley
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon (or more if you like ‘em spicy) red pepper flakes
1/2 cup bread crumbs
Parmesan, for sprinkling

Preheat oven to 400 F. In a big bowl, combine the ground beef, ground pork, 1/2 cup Parmesan, egg, basil, parsley, garlic powder, salt, red pepper flakes, and 1/4 c bread crumbs. Mix all  ingredients with hands til everything evenly distributed. Place leftover 1/4 c bread crumbs into a smaller bowl. Using hands, roll meatballs into balls ( little smaller than a golfball), roll meatballs in bread crumbs and place meatballs on a greased/lined sheet. Sprinkle with a bit of extra Parmesan . Bake 20 min til  cheese bubbly and meatballs look golden brown.


Tomato Sauce with Butter and Onions from Smitten Kitchen
28 ounces  whole peeled tomatoes from a can (San Marzano, if you can find them)*
5 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 medium-sized yellow onion, peeled and halved
Salt to taste

Put tomatoes, onion and butter in a heavy saucepan over med heat. Bring sauce to a simmer then lower heat to keep sauce at a slow, steady simmer for 45 min, til droplets of fat float free of tomatoes. Stir occasionally, crushing tomatoes against side of pot with wooden spoon. Remove from heat, discard  onion, add salt to taste and keep warm while you prepare your pasta.