No knead bread!

After watching Mark Bitman's video on a no knead bread recipe almost a decade ago, I've always wanted to try it. I mean who wouldn't want to make bread that looks and tastes gourmet without any hard work.



Here's my dough after mixing in all the ingredients. This step takes about 5 mins. I followed this recipe here which called for 4 cups of flour versus the original recipe of 3 cups. I also added in 1/2 tsp of sugar based on this recipe here. As you can see there's no shortage of folks that have tried this recipe and have added their own tips.



Here's the dough after 12 hours.



This is the dough after I folded it over several times and let it sit for another hour or so. Total time again was about 5 mins. I used a silpat for ease of cleaning.



Here's the bread after cooking in a 7 qt dutch oven. I also put in parchment paper so that I could easily remove it. Not sure how it would be without it but it was very easy to remove with the paper.



Here's the finished product. It tastes as good as it looks.

Mushroom Kale Pasta

Tried this recipe this past weekend. I substitued real mushrooms for the dry so it required a little adjusting. One piece of advice, make sure your kale is very clean. Despite being washed, we had a little unexpected protein.

Vitamix blender

We replaced our Blendtec blender with a Vitamixer from Costco that we bought during black friday for $350. The problem with the Blendtec was that the jars kept leaking at the seal. We had one jar replaced by Blendtec but the replacement actually locked up. After googling the problem, I found a lot of other folks had the same complaints. I haven't seen the same complaints for vitamix so I thought I'd try that one out. As usual, Costco was great with returning the Blendtec no questions asked. The one problem with the vitamix though is that it doesn't fit under the cabinets. :)

Penne with mushrooms, sun dried tomatoes, and zuchinni

Bread fail

Tried a new recipe that didn't use dry milk for Cole and unfortunately it didn't work. I'm not quite sure what went wrong but maybe the ratio of dry to liquid wasn't quite right. I also had to use his "butter" which maybe also doesn't work.

Easy TJ's soup

We made this Tomato Lentil soup after tasting it at Trader Joe's. It's really simple and surprisingly very good. Just heat up the soup with the lentils on the stove and serve with sour cream (plain Greek yogurt for a healthy substitute) or Parmesan cheese.

Super blender

We recently bought the Blendtec blender at Costco after seeing their roadshow and special pricing. Here you can see one of our fruit and spinach smoothies. This is by far the easiest way to feed Lauren and Cole veggies.


Here's the after picture. After having seen both the Vitamixer and the Blendtec at Costco, it was difficult to figure out which one was better. Both are extremely expensive and both seem to make smoothies, ice cream, soups, etc. very easily. If you want a good comparison, check out this comparison site. There are a ton of YouTube videos and sites that compare them as well. One big difference is that the Vitamixer won't fit under your cabinets on your counter whereas the Blendtec easily fits. The deciding factor for us was the price. The Blendtec was a little cheaper and had an 8 yr warranty from Costco.

Pancake Art

We recently bought a pancake batter dispenser to be used for filling up mini cupcakes but since it was actually designed for pancakes, I thought I'd give it a try. I must admit I am not an artist and actually had a lot of trouble coming up with things to draw.


This was supposed to be a smiley face with two eyes but it looks more like an African soapstone sculpture.


Heart.


Flower


Car


Triangle. I told you I had an hard time thinking of things to draw.

Watch out Dole!

Slicing fresh pineapples is a pain. You have to make so many cuts and then you have to remove the eyes etc. so I bought this pineapple slicer/corer. I wasn't sure it would work when I bought it but after using it, I'm glad I bought one. You cut off the top of the pineapple and then just turn the slicer into the pineapple. The slicer removes the core and slices the pineapple as you turn it.


Then you just pull the pineapple slices out. If you wanted to do a fancy presentation, you could fill the empty pineapple with some food.


Perfect pineapple slices just like out of a Dole can. :)

Waffles anyone?

This is what happens when you have too much batter.

Pineapples anyone?

Being at home has some benefits like trying out different recipes. I normally don't bake but decided to make a pineapple upside down cake because Fry's had pineapples for a dollar. The recipe is a light version that I used from Everyday Food. I didn't have any wheat flour so I just used regular instead. I'd probably use butter and add more sugar next time but then it probably wouldn't be that light then. :)

Rice and Salad

We have started giving Cole some solid food although I'm not sure you can say rice cereal is really solid food. Cole seems to be enjoying the rice cereal and he's still perfecting his technique. He pushes most of the rice back out but nevertheless enjoys it.


I've also started my bonding leave and one expectation is that dinner be ready. So much pressure. Here's a quick chicken caesar salad from Everyday Food. It tastes good and is very easy to make.

Home made bread

Nothing like eating some chili (crockpot in the background) with some home made bread. You can see Lauren posing after she helped put all the ingredients into our bread maker pan. Okay so we didn't do any mixing or kneading but still home made and a lot easier.

Weekend toast

Just peachy

It's been consistently over 110 degrees over here so I'm helping to make some ice cream. They said this would be fun but I don't buy it. Can you tell I'm barely able to smile?


Ah this is much better. I've never seen this machine in my life and I'm already 2 years old. Is this one of those wedding gifts that you only use a few times a year or in my parents case, once every 2 years?


Steady.....make sure you get every piece.


Yum!

Chocolate banana crepes

Nothing like some fruit in the morning to start the day. Made this everyday food recipe for breakfast a few weeks ago. I guess this could have been for dessert too. :)

For those cold winter nights

Nothing better than some hot corn chowder soup with bacon for those cold Arizona nights. Okay so it's not really cold here compared to other parts of the country but we did get near freezing the past few nights. :) Made this recipe from the latest issue of Real Simple and even managed to use our cast iron dutch oven again too.

Feel like some crab?

On a recent visit to Costco home, they were giving out the Costco cookbook which uses at least one ingredient they sell at Costco. The crab quiche recipe looked pretty simple and used their crab meat which is one of the items we'll buy from Costco versus in the supermarket.

The recipe is really easy. Just grate some cheese, mince some onions, combine eggs, half and half, and all your other ingredients. Then pour into a pie crust and bake. Couldn't be easier.

Cheese please

We made spaghetti carbonara from Everyday Food but added in mushrooms and peas. You'll want to finish it all that night since left overs aren't the best with this recipe. The eggs get cooked when you reheat it.

Irish Stew

Tried out Martha Stewart's Irish Stew recipe although we did add the carots. Couldn't find any lamb shoulder so I bought lamb loin chops from Costco. Overall not too bad and pretty easy to make. Just throw the ingredients in, bring it to a boil, and then pop it in the oven for 2 hours.