So if you're Polish, or know a Polish baker, or maybe been to a Polish bakery then you may be familiar with the most delicious poppy bread. OMG, so unbelievably good. It's this challah like bread that is filled with a sweet poppy seed filling and rolled up in a jelly roll form of sweet opiate heaven. Perhaps it IS the poppy that makes it so good, but whatever makes it so good is indeed drug-like.
So not having a cooking adventure in awhile I decided to take on the poppy bread. Jeff's cousin was coming over for brunch on Sunday so I thought it might be a nice treat to have in the bread basket. Not wanting to wake up really early Sunday morning for the three risings that the recipe called for, I decided to start the bread on Saturday.
Early afternoon Saturday after having tucked Jeff in on the couch to continue his ear infection recovery and just having finished cleaning a week's worth of dishes (what happens when Jeff is sick and I don't do the dishes), I was ready to begin. I managed to scrounge and find a package of yeast, although it's alive-ness was questionable. The bread itself took many various steps (and this is from the old red Polish cookbook that never really quite explains what in the world it is talking about): heating milk, creaming butter and sugar (still not sure why that was required), along with the usual of "waking up" the yeast, plus making the poppy seed filling mixture.
I managed to get through the first questionable step, whether or not the yeast was alive, and it appeared to be, so I happily continued through all of the bread making steps (there still remains some question though whether or not the water I used for the yeast was too hot, there was definitely a response, but it didn't rise as much as I would have expected). I plopped the now smooth ball of dough into the oiled bowl and let it to rise. In the meantime I went ahead making the poppy mixture which was simply 1 cup (yes a whole freakin' cup) of poppy seeds plus some milk and honey and an egg. I failed to follow the directions, and ended up with more of a poppy soup. I think I heated the honey up too hot (questionable whether or not that actually did anything), but what I didn't do was heat the mixture with the egg. Luckily I had my head on straight and wondered how such a liquidy mixture could possibly be a filling and I also wondered when exactly the egg that was called for in the mixture would be cooked. Luckily I put 2 and 2 together and was able to recover. Whew!
After the bread had sufficiently risen I was to punch it down and allow it to rise again. This was the point at which I was going to throw it in the fridge and pull it out in the morning and let it rise then. I have seen recipes where you can let things rise overnight, so I thought it was possible that it might do the rising overnight which would be fine too. Of course, what I didn't do when I originally threw the dough in the bowl was to make sure the whole thing was oiled so as to not form a skin. Well, form a skin it did. I poured extra grease in and let it rest for the night.
Sunday morning when I got up I was pleasantly surprised to find that it did in fact rise overnight, which was (hopefully) going to cut down on the time going forward. So I rolled it out, filled it with poppy goodness and rolled it up. Looked perfect. My mouth was watering. I then set it for it's last rising. Unfortunately what I hadn't counted on was that this last rising would take forever because the dough was still really cold from the fridge. Darn. So what was supposed to be an hour rising took about 2.5 hours, but I had the time, so no big deal.
Since the last rise took so darn long, I had oodles of time to pre-heat the oven. I set the dial for 350 and when it was finally ready to go in, I checked the temperature in the oven. The thermometer read 300 deg. So fine, what a normal person would do (since I like to consider myself normal), is think to herself: "the oven has been pre-heating forever, so clearly the oven temperature is running 50 deg lower than it should (it has had plenty of time to get up to temperature, so that's not the problem. I'll set it at 400." Which is exactly what I did (if you hadn't guessed that yet).
I then set the timer for 30 minutes (15 minutes shy of the what the recipe said) and headed into the living room to finish watching a terrible movie that I started the night before. The movie finished exactly after 30 minutes had elapsed so I headed back into the kitchen to check on the bread. I opened the oven and I found two things:
1. an oven that was exactly heated to 400 degrees
2. a very dark loaf of poppy bread
I believe there were tears. I had been SO excited about the bread and I TOTALLY screwed the whole thing up. A two day adventure all wasted. I tried cutting off the bottom (which was burnt), but it still wasn't good. I gave it to Jeff to try and he then tried to hide half of it under the carpet (that's not really true, he did try it, but he simply chose to donate the second half to the trash can). Then I tried to cut off the top of the bread, which was dark, but not burnt. That's when I realized that even the inside of the bread (the totally white fluffy and full of poppy part) was gross. The recipe was bad. This was NOT NOT NOT the poppy bread recipe that I was so fond of. I don't know what it was, a dirty imposter, but it was not good and the reason was NOT because I cooked it at the wrong temperature. The flavor was all wrong. It wasn't nearly sweet enough. Too much poppy flavor. It was all very very wrong.
I was all ready to share the recipe from my poppy bread delight, but I will not subject anyone to the imposter fake poppy bread recipe. I will find the right one and I will do it right and I will share that one. Sorry, you get nothing .... for now.
I promise you this: I will get you next time my poppy bread....
oh, and if anyone has what they believe to be a real Polish poppy bread recipe, PLEASE send it my way!
Monday, January 29, 2007
Monday, January 22, 2007
How dumb am I?
It's a "long" week for me, as these 5 day weeks have become known to be know as in our household. So Sunday morning I didn't want to get out of bed in anticipation of the impending 5 day week. Perhaps the prospect of all those days in which I have to work in a single week drove my brain cells to strike.
So even though I had a three day weekend, I did not really do any grocery shopping nor did I actually attempt to figure out what we were going to be having for dinner this week. Not even a little bit of thought as to what we even had in our fridge. Which, for some people isn't really a big deal, but to a control freak such as myself, these things must be planned far far in advance. Actually, I don't mind those dinners where I look at the fridge and then throw a bunch of stuff together, those nights can be a little bit fun. But those are NOT fun when you get home at 7 pm and everyone is hungry and you don't even want to think about it. Have you ever seen me when I'm hungry? Not nice, not nice at all. I will take your head off.
So you're beginning to see the picture here. It's Monday, I left work at 6:30, oh wait, did I mention yet that Jeff has been feeling under the weather for the past few days? So what USUALLY happens in these situations is that we order dinner. But clearly I was not running on all my cylinders at this point in the day, so I decided that I was going to stop at the grocery store and pick up some things and make a quick dinner. But here's the dumb part, the dinner that I came up with to make? Black bean soup and salad.
Did I ever mention Jeff doesn't like soup? Yes, I believe that I have. I actually thought in a moment of weakness that he would like the black bean soup because who doesn't like soup when they are sick? Plus I was going to blend it all up and make it thick and rich and yummy. Sauce-like one might say. Yeah, so that was a no go when I called and proposed that to Jeff. Duh. And then he surprised me and said that he wanted a sandwich for dinner (have I ever mentioned that he does not like sandwiches for dinner? well he doesn't, and I always want them). So fine, that was easy enough. Except that I had this oily mess of a sandwich for lunch which leaked out of its packaging, through the bag and ALL OVER my pants (did I mention that I had a meeting with some senior management today? yes, the oily mess was on my pants at the meeting. I am so very professional). So for the first night practically ever I did not want a sandwich for dinner. But whatever, Jeff wasn't feeling well, plus it's so easy to make.
So I stopped at the grocery store, bought a bunch of stuff and headed home. It was late, the bags were heavy and by the time I got home I was hungry and SO not in the mood to cook. But I pushed through and made dinner. However, I still didn't want a sandwich and I did want black bean soup so I ended up making two dinners, and they both actually turned out really well. I wanted to make a chipotle mayo for Jeff's sandwich since it's his favorite, but we didn't have any chipotles (can I make that plural? chipotli? I don't know). So I ended throwing a bunch of stuff in the food processor and making him a delicious spread and then I threw a bunch of crap in the pot and made a delicious black bean soup.
Maybe tomorrow I can convince Jeff that leftover black bean sauce is delicious. We'll see, but I'm not keeping my fingers crossed and I'm definitely going to plan tomorrow's dinner today.
Here's the goodies:
Roasted Red Pepper Mayo
1 garlic clove
1 roasted red pepper
2 tablespoons of mayo
2 tablespoons of goat cheese (I used some flavored queso blanco or something that we got from the farmer's market, but it's pretty much goat cheese)
salt and pepper
Whiz it up in the food processor and slather on your bread.
Black Bean Soup
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 small onion, diced
3 garlic cloves
~ 1 teaspoon of cumin
~ 1 teaspoon of hot spanish paprika (make it the good stuff)
half of a glass milk jar of chicken broth (probably 2 cups)
1 can of black beans (with about 1/4 can reserved)
1 cooked chicken breast
salt and pepper
yogurt/sour cream, lime, avocado, cilantro, scallions for serving
Heat olive oil in dutch oven until all shimmery. Add onion, a bit of salt and cook until slightly softened. Add garlic, cumin, paprika and cook until fragrant and then add the chicken broth. Scrape the bottom of the pot, add the bean and bring up to a simmer. Let it simmer for a bit, add some salt and pepper to let all the flavors blend together (you could probably poach a chicken breast in the soup at this point if you didn't have a cooked chicken breast, which I happened to have in the fridge). Add in the beans, bring it back up to simmer and turn off. Using an immersion blender or a regular one, blend it almost all the way until it's thick and delicious. Add in the reserved beans and cooked chicken, garnish and serve! So very easy and so very good.
So even though I had a three day weekend, I did not really do any grocery shopping nor did I actually attempt to figure out what we were going to be having for dinner this week. Not even a little bit of thought as to what we even had in our fridge. Which, for some people isn't really a big deal, but to a control freak such as myself, these things must be planned far far in advance. Actually, I don't mind those dinners where I look at the fridge and then throw a bunch of stuff together, those nights can be a little bit fun. But those are NOT fun when you get home at 7 pm and everyone is hungry and you don't even want to think about it. Have you ever seen me when I'm hungry? Not nice, not nice at all. I will take your head off.
So you're beginning to see the picture here. It's Monday, I left work at 6:30, oh wait, did I mention yet that Jeff has been feeling under the weather for the past few days? So what USUALLY happens in these situations is that we order dinner. But clearly I was not running on all my cylinders at this point in the day, so I decided that I was going to stop at the grocery store and pick up some things and make a quick dinner. But here's the dumb part, the dinner that I came up with to make? Black bean soup and salad.
Did I ever mention Jeff doesn't like soup? Yes, I believe that I have. I actually thought in a moment of weakness that he would like the black bean soup because who doesn't like soup when they are sick? Plus I was going to blend it all up and make it thick and rich and yummy. Sauce-like one might say. Yeah, so that was a no go when I called and proposed that to Jeff. Duh. And then he surprised me and said that he wanted a sandwich for dinner (have I ever mentioned that he does not like sandwiches for dinner? well he doesn't, and I always want them). So fine, that was easy enough. Except that I had this oily mess of a sandwich for lunch which leaked out of its packaging, through the bag and ALL OVER my pants (did I mention that I had a meeting with some senior management today? yes, the oily mess was on my pants at the meeting. I am so very professional). So for the first night practically ever I did not want a sandwich for dinner. But whatever, Jeff wasn't feeling well, plus it's so easy to make.
So I stopped at the grocery store, bought a bunch of stuff and headed home. It was late, the bags were heavy and by the time I got home I was hungry and SO not in the mood to cook. But I pushed through and made dinner. However, I still didn't want a sandwich and I did want black bean soup so I ended up making two dinners, and they both actually turned out really well. I wanted to make a chipotle mayo for Jeff's sandwich since it's his favorite, but we didn't have any chipotles (can I make that plural? chipotli? I don't know). So I ended throwing a bunch of stuff in the food processor and making him a delicious spread and then I threw a bunch of crap in the pot and made a delicious black bean soup.
Maybe tomorrow I can convince Jeff that leftover black bean sauce is delicious. We'll see, but I'm not keeping my fingers crossed and I'm definitely going to plan tomorrow's dinner today.
Here's the goodies:
Roasted Red Pepper Mayo
1 garlic clove
1 roasted red pepper
2 tablespoons of mayo
2 tablespoons of goat cheese (I used some flavored queso blanco or something that we got from the farmer's market, but it's pretty much goat cheese)
salt and pepper
Whiz it up in the food processor and slather on your bread.
Black Bean Soup
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 small onion, diced
3 garlic cloves
~ 1 teaspoon of cumin
~ 1 teaspoon of hot spanish paprika (make it the good stuff)
half of a glass milk jar of chicken broth (probably 2 cups)
1 can of black beans (with about 1/4 can reserved)
1 cooked chicken breast
salt and pepper
yogurt/sour cream, lime, avocado, cilantro, scallions for serving
Heat olive oil in dutch oven until all shimmery. Add onion, a bit of salt and cook until slightly softened. Add garlic, cumin, paprika and cook until fragrant and then add the chicken broth. Scrape the bottom of the pot, add the bean and bring up to a simmer. Let it simmer for a bit, add some salt and pepper to let all the flavors blend together (you could probably poach a chicken breast in the soup at this point if you didn't have a cooked chicken breast, which I happened to have in the fridge). Add in the beans, bring it back up to simmer and turn off. Using an immersion blender or a regular one, blend it almost all the way until it's thick and delicious. Add in the reserved beans and cooked chicken, garnish and serve! So very easy and so very good.
Saturday, January 13, 2007
While at the beach: any ingredient goes
The food we typically eat (when we go out) while in Mexico is almost always fabulous. It's mostly americanized, so I don't have fears of finding terrible surprises in my food (like anise in my donuts), but what IS always a wild 'n crazy adventure is what we make in our little kitchen in the condo.
Since we don't have access to a full grocery store, or most of the ingredients that we're used to (or don't want to buy because we'll be there for only a week or two) we bring some of our own food and we buy some, but it gets good when we try to make breakfast or lunch sometimes. Here are my favorites from this trip:
The good:
Both of these were my ideas which is mostly why they fall under the good category.
Peanut Butter and Dried Blueberry sandwich (One thumb up)
To me, this makes perfect sense. We didn't have jelly, but we did have dried fruit. Who wouldn't put the fruit in the sandwich? Some in my family (my sister) was horrified with the prospect. It was delicious. If you put enough on it was like the jam made with whole fruit which is mostly chunky anyways.
Tuna fish and guacamole on french bread (Two thumbs up)
So we had canned tuna and we had mayo, but I typically don't find this enough to satisfy me in a tuna sandwich. So I raided the fridge...the only thing that was condiment-able was guac. So we threw some of that in there and it was perfect! It had everything we needed to complete the sandwich, a little more flavor plus tomotoes and onions, which is a definite must on a tuna sandwich.
Individual ingredient victories: Bimbo
I can't attest to this one, I never ended up trying it, but the vote in our villa was two enthusiastic thumbs up to Bimbo! What is Bimbo you ask? A brand of bread, of course! Like wonder, but bimbo! But the type of bread we got was this pre-toasted bread, like melba toast, but not so crunchy. Apparently Bimbo microwaved for a bit is delicious, I'm still not convinced that microwaved toast is good, but that's what they say.
The bad (one thumb down):
Egg sandwich with chorizo on regular bread (sorry mom! and I'm still very appreciative of your work and dad's delivery service to me on the beach)
The idea of this sandwich is actually not revolutionary. In fact, I'm sure you could find the exact same thing at hundreds of restaurants in the city. However, where this one went wrong, was the MASSIVE amount of chorizo in the sandwich. There was maybe a half an egg on the sandwich and a half a pound of meat. And I enjoy chorizo (especially the spanish kind, this was the mexican kind - difference (among others: spanish is smoked, mexican is raw), but at 9 in the morning, I'm not hoping for a half a pound of meat. But really where this one went wrong (and yes, this sounds terrible) was that the bread was termendously soggy. Why soggy? Because my dad delivered it to us on the beach, so it sat for a minutes we ate it. Half a pound of meat on soggy bread, does not a breakfast sandwich make. I do appreciate the effort, and I'd rather eat it than make it myself while at the beach, but the culinary experience is purely what I'm investigating here.
Individual ingredient disasters: Smoked almonds
Ever seen smoked almonds at the grocery store? If you do, don't buy them, they're terrible. End of story.
The ugly:
Margaritaville (three fingers):
Ok, so this wasn't really cooking or anything that we concocted, but man was it ugly. Happy hour, every day 3 PM, we did NOT miss it. It included pretty much any drink you want, but three fell victim to the power of the large margarita.
Here they are in decreasing order of magnitude -
Victim 1: The aunt
I wasn't there to witness this one, but my aunt was the first to fall to the large margarita. Even the waiters were coming up to her the next day asking if she wanted more margaritas. Word is on the street that she had about 2 large margaritas (maybe more but the records are fuzzy after the first one). Let's just say there was no dinner for her and she definitely caught the worst case of the margaritaville attack.
Victim 2: The pops
My dad tends to eat one meal a day. This has really been true for as long as I have known him. But this causes a bit of consternation being in Mexico and happy hour typically occurring before his one meal of the day. The count for him on the margaritas was two. No food. He was down and out for the night after that. Grammy luckily got him to eat some cheese before he headed off to bed.
Victim 3: The blogger
So I had many days of happy hours and two previous days in which I had large margaritas, but this particular one was especially strong. Like I said, 3 pm is when happy hour starts. So I sipped my way through the next hour or so (they are LARGE I say), and giggled my way through the next 5 hours. We went back to the room, got ready for dinner, went to dinner, came home, hung out for a bit .... I was still drunk. Perhaps it was all in my head, but man, was that strong!
Here's a shot (get it? shot? like a shot of alcohol, ha!) of me with my SMALL fruity girly drink after the margarita night:
The anti-victim:
Special Mention goes to my mom who defied all odds with the margaritas by bringing down her own EXTRA shot of tequila and adding it to her margarita at happy hour. Pretty impressive stuff.
And...The birthday (one finger right down the middle):
Aah, yes, Jeff's 30th birthday. Not really a culinary experience to discuss, but a picture is worth a thousand words, and I needed to share.
Actually the cake was great (traditional Mexican Dulce de Leche, which is a yellow layer cake with dulce de leche in between the layers), and the party was fun too. Jeff, maybe not so excited about the whole 30 thing.
Overall, great trip, great food (with a few exceptions) and drink (maybe too good) and great friends and family!
Since we don't have access to a full grocery store, or most of the ingredients that we're used to (or don't want to buy because we'll be there for only a week or two) we bring some of our own food and we buy some, but it gets good when we try to make breakfast or lunch sometimes. Here are my favorites from this trip:
The good:
Both of these were my ideas which is mostly why they fall under the good category.
Peanut Butter and Dried Blueberry sandwich (One thumb up)
To me, this makes perfect sense. We didn't have jelly, but we did have dried fruit. Who wouldn't put the fruit in the sandwich? Some in my family (my sister) was horrified with the prospect. It was delicious. If you put enough on it was like the jam made with whole fruit which is mostly chunky anyways.
Tuna fish and guacamole on french bread (Two thumbs up)
So we had canned tuna and we had mayo, but I typically don't find this enough to satisfy me in a tuna sandwich. So I raided the fridge...the only thing that was condiment-able was guac. So we threw some of that in there and it was perfect! It had everything we needed to complete the sandwich, a little more flavor plus tomotoes and onions, which is a definite must on a tuna sandwich.
Individual ingredient victories: Bimbo
I can't attest to this one, I never ended up trying it, but the vote in our villa was two enthusiastic thumbs up to Bimbo! What is Bimbo you ask? A brand of bread, of course! Like wonder, but bimbo! But the type of bread we got was this pre-toasted bread, like melba toast, but not so crunchy. Apparently Bimbo microwaved for a bit is delicious, I'm still not convinced that microwaved toast is good, but that's what they say.
The bad (one thumb down):
Egg sandwich with chorizo on regular bread (sorry mom! and I'm still very appreciative of your work and dad's delivery service to me on the beach)
The idea of this sandwich is actually not revolutionary. In fact, I'm sure you could find the exact same thing at hundreds of restaurants in the city. However, where this one went wrong, was the MASSIVE amount of chorizo in the sandwich. There was maybe a half an egg on the sandwich and a half a pound of meat. And I enjoy chorizo (especially the spanish kind, this was the mexican kind - difference (among others: spanish is smoked, mexican is raw), but at 9 in the morning, I'm not hoping for a half a pound of meat. But really where this one went wrong (and yes, this sounds terrible) was that the bread was termendously soggy. Why soggy? Because my dad delivered it to us on the beach, so it sat for a minutes we ate it. Half a pound of meat on soggy bread, does not a breakfast sandwich make. I do appreciate the effort, and I'd rather eat it than make it myself while at the beach, but the culinary experience is purely what I'm investigating here.
Individual ingredient disasters: Smoked almonds
Ever seen smoked almonds at the grocery store? If you do, don't buy them, they're terrible. End of story.
The ugly:
Margaritaville (three fingers):
Ok, so this wasn't really cooking or anything that we concocted, but man was it ugly. Happy hour, every day 3 PM, we did NOT miss it. It included pretty much any drink you want, but three fell victim to the power of the large margarita.
Here they are in decreasing order of magnitude -
Victim 1: The aunt
I wasn't there to witness this one, but my aunt was the first to fall to the large margarita. Even the waiters were coming up to her the next day asking if she wanted more margaritas. Word is on the street that she had about 2 large margaritas (maybe more but the records are fuzzy after the first one). Let's just say there was no dinner for her and she definitely caught the worst case of the margaritaville attack.
Victim 2: The pops
My dad tends to eat one meal a day. This has really been true for as long as I have known him. But this causes a bit of consternation being in Mexico and happy hour typically occurring before his one meal of the day. The count for him on the margaritas was two. No food. He was down and out for the night after that. Grammy luckily got him to eat some cheese before he headed off to bed.
Victim 3: The blogger
So I had many days of happy hours and two previous days in which I had large margaritas, but this particular one was especially strong. Like I said, 3 pm is when happy hour starts. So I sipped my way through the next hour or so (they are LARGE I say), and giggled my way through the next 5 hours. We went back to the room, got ready for dinner, went to dinner, came home, hung out for a bit .... I was still drunk. Perhaps it was all in my head, but man, was that strong!
Here's a shot (get it? shot? like a shot of alcohol, ha!) of me with my SMALL fruity girly drink after the margarita night:
The anti-victim:Special Mention goes to my mom who defied all odds with the margaritas by bringing down her own EXTRA shot of tequila and adding it to her margarita at happy hour. Pretty impressive stuff.
And...The birthday (one finger right down the middle):
Aah, yes, Jeff's 30th birthday. Not really a culinary experience to discuss, but a picture is worth a thousand words, and I needed to share.Actually the cake was great (traditional Mexican Dulce de Leche, which is a yellow layer cake with dulce de leche in between the layers), and the party was fun too. Jeff, maybe not so excited about the whole 30 thing.
Overall, great trip, great food (with a few exceptions) and drink (maybe too good) and great friends and family!
Addendum: day 15 and shave free
the waxing story continues...
We arrived in SUNNY Mexico, and being the loud mouth that I am, it didn't take me even a day before I had shared my waxing disaster story with my whole family (here a tip though for all my readers: brother-in-laws and fathers don't really want to hear about waxing disaster stories). Most in my family thought I was crazy but at least sympathized with the annoyance.
So a day after we arrived, irritated and armed with my razor and shaving cream I shaved then...and waited. Day 1, day 2, day 3, day 4....you wouldn't believe what happened (or maybe you would), no hair was returning!
I jumped for joy! Maybe it WAS worth it! I was so excited that even for a brief moment I thought to myself that I would never shave again, I'd ONLY get them waxed. I quickly reminded myself that was a costly silly proposition, but it at least indicates how happy I was.
So I'm on Day 15 and shave free, and I feel great!
We arrived in SUNNY Mexico, and being the loud mouth that I am, it didn't take me even a day before I had shared my waxing disaster story with my whole family (here a tip though for all my readers: brother-in-laws and fathers don't really want to hear about waxing disaster stories). Most in my family thought I was crazy but at least sympathized with the annoyance.
So a day after we arrived, irritated and armed with my razor and shaving cream I shaved then...and waited. Day 1, day 2, day 3, day 4....you wouldn't believe what happened (or maybe you would), no hair was returning!
I jumped for joy! Maybe it WAS worth it! I was so excited that even for a brief moment I thought to myself that I would never shave again, I'd ONLY get them waxed. I quickly reminded myself that was a costly silly proposition, but it at least indicates how happy I was.
So I'm on Day 15 and shave free, and I feel great!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
