Easy Rustic Bread

This bread has been all over pinterest, so if you are all fans, then you've probably seen it before!  Truly, this bread is amazing and it's the easiest bread I've ever made!  You have to try it at least once and leave a comment to let me know how it works out!

Easy Rustic Bread
(original recipe: Simply So Good blog)

3 cups unbleached All-Purpose flour
1 3/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. rapid rise yeast or bread machine yeast (same thing)
1 1/2 cups warm water

Find a very large mixing bowl and whisk together the flour, salt and yeast.  Add water and mix gently until the mixture starts to come together.  It will still be quite wet.  Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and leave on the counter for 12-15 hours (you can leave it up to 24 hours, but don't put it in the refrigerator).  After the allotted time, heat the oven to 450 degrees and place the pot with lid on inside the oven for 30 minutes.  A cast iron pot works really well for this, but you can use any pot that can go inside your oven safely.  I used a stainless steel pan and lid last time and it turned our fantastic!  So, while the oven is pre-heating, pour the dough onto a heavily floured surface and attempt to shape it into a ball.  It will still be soft.  Cover the dough with the plastic wrap while you wait for the pot to pre-heat.  After 30 minutes, remove lid and drop dough into the middle of the pot and return the lid.  Cook for 30 minutes.  When the timer goes off, take lid off of the pot and return to the oven to bake for 15 minutes.  Finally, remove the bread from the oven and place it on a cooling rack.  It will be hard to wait to dig into this bread and I'll be honest, I usually don't wait more than 10 minutes.  Just be careful because it is very hot!

The original recipe has a ton of FAQ's and they cover any question you could possibly imagine!  Check it out if you need some guidance.  You'll also find a great selection of mix-in options on the original site.  I have not yet experimented with mix-ins because the basic bread is just SO amazing!

Hope you enjoy!

Sarah

Fudge Brownies

I know I have a few brownie recipes on this blog, but can you really have too many brownie recipes?  These are my go-to brownies right now because they are easy!  You an give or take the instant coffee powder, but I always prefer to use it if I have it on hand.

Fudge Brownies (adapted from King Arthur Flour)

Ingredients:
4 large eggs
1 1/4 cups Special Dark Cocoa or Dutch-process cocoa
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon espresso powder or instant coffee powder (Starbucks VIA are yummy)
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
2 1/4 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour or White Whole Wheat Flour
2 cups chocolate chips

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly grease a 9" x 13" pan.  Crack the 4 eggs into a large bowl, and beat them together.  Next, add cocoa, salt, baking powder, espresso powder, and vanilla and mix untill the batter is velvety smooth.

In a medium-sized microwave-safe bowl, melt the butter by slicing it into tablespoons and placing it in the bowl.  It should take about 1 minute to melt.  Next, add the sugar and stir to combine. Continue to  microwave briefly, just until the mixture is hot (about 110°F to 120°F), but not bubbling; it'll become shiny looking as you stir it. King Arthur Flour claims that heating the mixture to this point will dissolve more of the sugar, which will yield a shiny top crust on your brownies.  Add the hot butter/sugar mixture to the egg/cocoa mixture pouring slowly into the bowl, stirring until smooth.  Add the flour and chips.

Spoon the batter into a lightly greased 9" x 13" pan.  Bake the brownies for about 30 minutes, until a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean, or with just a few moist crumbs clinging to it. The brownies should feel set on the edges, and the center should look very moist, but not uncooked. Remove them from the oven and cool on a rack before cutting and serving.

Week 68: Birthday Boy Turns 4!

How is it that I have a 9-year-old, a 6-year-old and a 4-year-old?  Really, life is just flying by and I know that if I close my eyes for just a minute they'll all be graduating High School and having their own kids!  So, my youngest, Zachary, turned 4 last Wednesday and we celebrated his birthday 2 weekends ago with family and a few friends!  His birthday is so close to Halloween that we had a costume party and did a Spider theme and bought leftover Halloween decorations for the party! It was fun to have spider webs all over the house.  Zach loved to throw things into the webs to see what stuck and what fell down!  Sadly, I still have some spider webs hanging around my house. . .

Cinnamon rolls for Zach's 'real' birthday at home!

Time is slipping by, so along with the speed of my children growing, starting Cross Fit is kicking my butt (quite literally)!  I am so exhausted every night, but it's oddly addictive.  My husband has been going to Cross Fit for over a year and I have picked on him about the incredible pain he's in after every workout!  However, I am now able to see this pain from a 'personal' perspective and I'm finding that the pain is intense, but the fact that I completed the "mac-daddy' workout really makes me feel amazing!  So, I'm hooked, but my blogging is totally suffering (as is my menu-planning), so we've had some interesting meals lately that include chicken nuggets for the kids and eggs for Mommy and Daddy!  It's all good.  ;)

Week 68 Menu

Sunday - Rotisserie chicken, broccoli, potatoes
Monday - Roasted chicken legs with cauliflower, couscous

Tuesday - Spaghetti with meat sauce, green beans, zucchini noodles

Wednesday - Chicken tacos, black beans, rice, seared zucchini
Thursday - Thai basil shrimp, cabbage, red peppers, white rice

Friday - Out to dinner

Saturday - Out to dinner

I am not certain that I'll make any of these meals this week.  It's just been that crazy around here with homework and all of the neighbors begging to play outside in the afternoons.  We don't even do sports yet, and it's just busy all of the time.  I hope that some of you will share your attempts at menu planning too!  Just post your menus (or what you think you might cook) in the comments below, so that we can all get ideas from one another!

Happy cooking, everyone!

Sarah

Week 67: Cul-de-Sac Dinner!

Well, we planted a winter garden for the first time ever in our Cul-de-Sac and it's now just starting to come together for us!  In celebration of our first harvest (collard greens), we got together and cooked some good, old fashioned southern collard greens with smoked turkey legs and cornbread!  We used Paula Deen's recipe for collard greens and they were really amazing!  I am from the Chicago suburbs originally, so we never ate collard greens growing up and I've never served them in my home!  I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed them!

My daughter, Annabelle (9 years old), just got a new cookbook from some friends and she wanted to use it to make dessert Sunday.  She picked a recipe for cake truffles (aka cake pops) and we made the cake from scratch and I used leftover icing that was in my freezer to complete the recipe!  Then, we rolled them in powdered sugar!  Delicious!  I'm so proud of her because she made almost everything by herself.

Cake Truffles actually looked like chocolate donut holes to me!  

Week 67 Menu

Sunday - Turkey legs, collard greens, corn bread
Monday - Meatloaf, green beans

Tuesday - Mahi-mahi, roasted mixed veggies

Wednesday - Chicken tacos, black beans, rice, seared zucchini
Thursday - Spaghetti with meat sauce, broccoli, zucchini noodles (angel hair for kids)

Friday - Leftovers

Saturday - Out to dinner

Have a great week, everyone!

Sarah

Week 66: How Sweet it Is!

It was definitely a sweet weekend in this house! Our friends from New York visited this weekend, so we had cinnamon rolls, brownies and carrot cupcakes scattered over the past 2 days. The kids are in heaven and most of the adults were pretty happy too. ;)

 

We did also have 'real' food, but I enjoy recalling the sweets so much more fondly! It was a fun weekend filled with my kids attacking my hubby's college roommate with crazy wrestling matches, some great hiking at Sope Creek and lots of good food.

Week 66 Menu

Sunday - Chicken salad sandwiches
Monday - Leftovers

Tuesday -  Beef tacos, black beans, white rice

Wednesday - Chicken stir fry, cabbage, red peppers, leftover rice (didn't get to this last week)
Thursday - Spaghetti with meat sauce, broccoli, zucchini noodles (angel hair for kids)

Friday - Roasted salmon with mixed roasted veggies

Saturday - Out to dinner

Have a great week, everyone!

Sarah

'Sort-of' Dragon's Breath Chili

You have to try this chili! I am always looking for a new chili recipe, but I'll be sticking with this one for awhile.  I guess I just get bored with making the same kind of chili every Fall and my kids were having trouble eating the previous recipe because I was making it 'too spicy' for them!  The original Guy Fieri recipe for this chili is probably very spicy, but I changed quite a few things based on what I had in my pantry and the heat factor.  

Dragon's Breath Chili (Adapted from Guy Fieri)

Ingredients:
2 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons canola oil
2 red bell peppers, diced (about 2 cups)
4 jalapeños, minced
3 poblano chiles, roasted, peeled, chopped (optional)
2 yellow onions, diced (about 2 cups)
1 head garlic, minced (about 1/4 cup)
2 pounds ground beef, coarse grind
1 pound bulk Italian sausage
2 teaspoons onion powder
2 teaspoons garlic powder
3 tablespoons chili powder
2 teaspoons paprika
2 teaspoons ground cumin
2 teaspoons ground coriander
2 teaspoons cayenne pepper
2 teaspoons kosher salt
2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
2 cups tomato sauce
1 cup tomato paste (I used about 1/2 cup because it's all I had)
12 ounces lager beer or beef broth
1 cup chicken stock
2 (15.5-ounce) cans pinto beans, with juice
1 (15.5-ounce) can kidney beans, with juice

Directions:
In large stock pot over medium-high heat, add butter and oil. Add bell pepper, jalapeno, chiles and onion and cook until caramelized, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and saute a minute longer. Add ground beef and sausage to brown and stir gently, trying not to break up the ground beef too much. Cook until meat is nicely browned and cooked through, about 7 to10 minutes. Add in powdered onions and garlic, chili powder, paprika, cumin, coriander, cayenne, salt and pepper and cook for 1 minute. Add in tomato sauce and paste and stir for 2 minutes. Stir in beer(or beef stock) and chicken stock. Add beans, lower heat and simmer for 2 hours.

Serve with sour cream, shredded cheese and sliced green onion if desired!  For an extra special treat with leftovers, we are always game for chili dogs!  

Enjoy!

Sarah

Week 65: Welcome Fall!

Loving this cooler weather this week!  We went camping with some friends this past weekend to Cloudland Canyon State Park in Georgia and it was in the 40's when we woke up Sunday morning!  That was a bit colder that I was ready for during an already very rainy weekend!  My sleeping bag was calling to me on Sunday morning saying 'don't leave me yet!'  If you've never checked out Cloudland Canyon, you really need to take some time to visit it!  The canyon is not like you might imagine a canyon out West, but it's deep with waterfalls at the bottom and the hike down into the canyon is awesome!  The hike around the rim is beautiful as well!  There's great hiking, mountain biking and the camp sites are very spacious!

Annabelle enjoying a toasted marshmallow! 

I had my first day at our local Cross Fit Gym today!  I was totally wiped out this morning, but very excited that I made it through day 1!  I have 2 weeks of beginner's training and then I get to go to the 'big kid' classes with everyone else!  The owner of this gym is really a great leader and teacher, so I was fortunate to have a private lesson with him this morning because no one else wants to get up and be there at 6am.  Imagine that?

So, it's been a good 2 weeks since I posted a menu, but I'm back and ready to have a menu up.  It's been fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pants with cooking here lately and that makes dinner time really stressful for all of us!  I spent a week helping coordinate the CCC MOPS Children's Consignment Sale in Smyrna, GA two weeks ago and then I spent last week recovering and dealing with a few sick kids.

Onto the menu. . .

Week 65 Menu

Sunday - Marinated salmon with roasted mixed veggies
Monday - Pork sirloin roast, cauliflower, potatoes and carrots

Tuesday -  Leftovers

Wednesday - Chicken stir fry, cabbage, red peppers, white rice
Thursday - Chili, steamed broccoli, salad

Friday - Pizza

Saturday - Out to dinner

Have a great week, everyone!

Sarah