Black Bean Quinoa Salad

First of all, I promise it tastes better than it looks!  I had a very wiggly baby in my lap when I tried to plate and photograph this meal.

The origin of this dinner at our house actually comes from a desire to incorporate more beans and rice into our diets.  However, I had some leftover quinoa I needed to use up--so here we go.  Simple as that.

First, sautee a chopped onion in a couple tablespoons of olive oil.

After they've caramelized a little, (about 10 minutes) add in the quinoa

and chicken (or vegetable) broth.

Give it a good stir, turn down the heat, cover and simmer until most of the liquid is absorbed, about 15 to 20 minutes.  Stir it occasionally.

When there's just a little liquid left at the bottom of the pan, (see picture) add in the corn

(wow, sorry about the upside down and funky pictures...)

and your garlic, cumin, cayenne pepper, salt and pepper.

After about 5 minutes (to steam the corn) mix in your (cooked) beans and heat through.

Black Bean Quinoa Salad

2 T olive oil

1 small onion, chopped

1 cup uncooked quinoa

2 cups chicken or vegetable broth

1 1/2 cups frozen corn

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/4 tsp cumin

pinch of cayenne pepper

salt & pepper, to taste

1 1/2 cups black beans, cooked

Heat olive oil in large skillet.  Sautee onion in olive oil.  Turn down heat and add quinoa and broth.  Cover and simmer for 15 to 20 minutes, or until most of the liquid is absorbed.  Add corn and let simmer additional 5 minutes.  Mix in spices and beans and heat through.  Serve hot or cold.

Potato Rolls and Cinnamon Roll Tutorial

I already wrote my spiel about different rolls for different occasions--I've found that even to be true about cinnamon rolls.  There's definitely a difference between the part-whole-wheat-less-fat-and-sugar-but-still-yummy version I'm willing to feed my kids for breakfast on a weekday and the perfect, not-so-little chunks of heavenly goodness I feed to my girlfriends before a big day shopping.  To be honest, I even have different recipes in those categories.  

I find having different recipes for the same thing is useful.  And not boring.

This particular dough is very multipurpose.  It has a minimum chill time of 8 hours and a maximum fridge shelf-life of 5 days.  I always make a huge batch and use it all week long for different things, including cinnamon rolls, hot dog/hamburger buns, dinner rolls, pigs in blankets, steam buns ("surprise muffins" to my kids) and more.  The only thing I really haven't tried is making it into a loaf of bread.  I guess it seems like such a waste to do that, because this dough is so easy to work with.  

One more note before I begin--don't over-complicate your life.  This dough is made with mashed potatoes.  I have never, ever made potatoes especially for this recipe (though I have purposefully made extra so I made sure to have enough left over).  Just try the recipe one day after you serve up mashed potatoes for dinner.  I've never tried using instant, but I bet those would work fine, too.  Little hint though--my family will eat all the potatoes served on the table.  So I usually sneakily dish out some and set it aside for using later.

Proof your yeast first.  Mine is a little old so it's not all bubbly.  But it still works most of the time!

Then mix in mashed potatoes, sugar, shortening, eggs, salt and half the flour.  Mix it up until it's relatively blended together.

Then add in the remaining flour, one cup at a time.  Mix well after each addition.

You know you have enough flour with the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl but sticks to the bottom, as shown:

Knead it for about 8 minutes with the dough hook or 10 minutes by hand.  Grease the bowl, cover with plastic, and refrigerate for at least 8 hours.  Or forget about it for 3 days and then come back to it.  Whatever.

Even with "old" yeast, it grows plenty big...

I try to take advantage of my resources.  On this particular day, I had 4 cups of leftover mashed potatoes, which is enough for a quadruple batch.  Of course I had to make it all!

When you work with that much dough, though, you have to know about how much to dish out.  With a single batch, you'll just be dividing in two.  Larger than that and you're doing math or estimating weight.  With this recipe I usually choose the latter so I can just pull a hunk out of the bowl and leave the rest in the fridge for another day.  I'm showing you below my approximate measurement for about one pound of dough--about the size of a coconut, if it were balled up.

With that, you do whatever you want.  Suggestions listed above.  But here's a cinnamon roll tutorial since that's one of the most complicated options.

First, roll out the dough to about 12"x18".  It should be 1/4" to 1/2" thick, depending on how you like your bread to filling ratio. Optionally, spread it with softened butter.  If you do, you get a caramelized filling.  If you don't, you get sort of a more granulated-cinnamon-sugar crunch, if you know what I mean.  Both are good.

In a bowl, mix together 1/2 cup of brown sugar with 1 T cinnamon.  Spread that over your dough.

Starting on one of the long sides, roll the dough into a log:

Leave it seam-side down.

Slice it.  About 1 1/2" is good--any bigger and they like to fall over.  I like to use a pizza cutter.  You can use a sharp knife, a dough cutter, or dental floss (probably not minty...)

Place them on a pan.  You can do a large jellyroll pan for the giant cinnamon bun look, or cram them all into a cake pan with only about an inch between each one.  The latter seems to get more of that caramelized sticky bun result.

Optionally, chill these overnight in the fridge.  If you do this, pull them out at least 2 hours before baking so you don't end up with doughy middles.

Cover and let rise about 30 minutes, or until doubled.

Uncover and bake at 375 for 15 to 20 minutes, or until golden.


Potato Rolls (single batch)


1 cup mashed potatoes
1 1/2 cups warm water (100 degrees F)
1 T yeast
1/2 cup sugar
2/3 cup shortening
2 eggs
1 tsp salt
6 1/2 cups flour (can use whole wheat)

*for cinnamon rolls, add:
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar
2 T cinnamon

Proof yeast in warm water.  Stir in remaining ingredients, reserving half of the flour.  Mix well.  Add remaining flour 1 cup at a time, mixing after each addition.  Use additional flour if necessary.  Dough should pull away from sides of bowl but still stick to the bottom.  Knead 8 to 10 minutes with dough hook or 10 to 12 minutes by hand.  Grease bowl, place dough in bowl, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 8 hours or up to 5 days.  Use as desired to form dinner rolls, cinnamon rolls, hamburger/hot dog buns, pigs in blankets, steam buns, etc.  Most rolls bake well at 375 for about 15 minutes (less time if smaller than the palm of your hand).  This dough works well for forming rolls, refrigerating before the second rise, and removing from the fridge a couple hours before baking time.

Angel Honey Bread

This bread is a tribute to one of my mom's best friends, who I will call Angel.  She passed away last year after battling cancer.

My first memory of this bread was had sitting on a pew at church.  Angel used to bake it to be used for our sacrament services.  As a teenager, it was special because it tasted good.  As a young adult, I realized she wanted to do more to serve God by providing the bread so many others of our congregation depended on.  It was because of her example that in college I started baking the bread for our church congregation in Utah.

I even called my mom for the specific Honey Bread recipe, and used it once or twice.  Shortly thereafter, I found out that someone in our congregation had a lot of allergies, honey and butter (both in the original recipe) being two of them.  So I called mom again for a more basic white bread, and stuck to it. 

You might even say this bread contributed to my potential husband-to-be learning to appreciate my baking skills, since he got to sample them at least weekly.  That might be a bit of a stretch, though!

Today I got a hankering for a deliciously soft, scrumptious bread.  I knew the texture and the flavor, and I knew it was Angel's Honey Bread.  But since we're on a tight budget and I'm a mom trying to sneak in whole grains where I can, I decided to be brave and play with the recipe.  I didn't intend to post it here, so there aren't any pictures of the steps.  But it's really pretty simple.  Angel used to throw all her ingredients in a bread machine, but since I have lots of hungry hippos at my table I tripled the recipe and did it in a stand mixer.  If you cut it back down and just make 1/3, though, you can throw it all in your bread machine. Just pick the light crust setting.

My mom and I were talking about this friend just a week or two ago and missing her a little.  But this is just one more way she keeps living on in our hearts. 

Angel Honey Bread

3 3/4 cup warm (100 degrees F) water

1 T active dry yeast

3/4 cup oil

3/4 cup honey

2 tsp salt

3/4 cup dry milk powder

5 cups white bread flour

4 to 6 cups whole wheat flour (I use hard white)

Proof yeast in warm water.  Add remaining ingredients, leaving out 3 to 4 cups of the flour.  Mix well, pouring in additional flour to achieve a soft dough. (Sticks to the bottom but not the sides of the bowl.) Knead 10 to 15 minutes, 8 to 12 in stand mixer.  Grease large bowl, let rise covered until double, about 1 hour.  Punch down and divide dough into four equal loaves.  Put shaped loaves into 4 greased bread pans (9x5 works, but 8x4 would be better), cover and let rise until just cresting the edge of the pan, about 30 minutes.  Bake at 350 for 25 to 30 minutes, or until tops are golden brown.  Turn out onto cooling rack.  Eat one of the loaves warm.  Allow the rest to cool completely before slicing.

Dinner Rolls

As I've been hunting around and trying different recipes, I've found I like different rolls for different things.  I have a favorite roll for cinnamon rolls.  I have a favorite for wrapping meat or cheese in.  I have a favorite roll for special occasions.  And then there's that ever-wonderful, light but rich, buttery but not overly-so, slightly sweet perfect all purpose dinner roll.  It goes with spaghetti.  Or roast. Or soup. Or salad. Or fried chicken.  Get the picture?  

I was certainly grateful for this recipe when I found it on another food blog.  However, being comfortable with baking yeast breads and finding myself without some ingredients, I "made do and did without," and I'm here to tell you they still turned out wonderful.

I also flash froze (hand-formed rolls and placed them on a baking sheet, then placed the sheet in the freezer for 2 to 3 hours) some of the uncooked rolls after the first rise and before the second.  If taken out of the freezer about 4 hours before baking, you can cover them loosely with plastic wrap and let them slowly thaw and rise that way and they still turn out wonderful.  Just in case you wanted to know.

First step:  melt butter and warm milk.  Do it in a saucepan or in the microwave.  Also, if you use powdered milk like I do you can use constituted milk or just warm up some water with the butter and add milk powder to the dough later. I'm sure the full-fat version would be wonderfully rich, (the original recipe calls for whole milk) but don't knock the dry milk method until you try it.  

Let all that cool to about 100 degrees F.

Meanwhile, proof your yeast.  What this means is to measure out your warm water and sprinkle the yeast over top.  Let it sit for 10 to 15 minutes, or until bubbly, like so:

To your yeast mixture, add in the cooled butter and milk, sugar, salt and eggs.  The eggs are pictured so you remember to beat them first, please. :)

You'll also stir in about 3 cups or so of flour.  It will be sort of batter-like.  Mix it well and let the dough be a little more homogeneous (the same all the way through).  Then stir in 4-6 additional cups flour.  The dough will still be a little sticky, but should pull away from the sides of the mixing bowl.  It will probably still stick to the bottom, though.

A quick word about flour.  To get a softer, fluffier roll, use all-purpose flour.  But I promise the rolls will still be delightful if you use up to half whole wheat flour.  I haven't tried more, though--for us it's meant to be an accompaniment to dinner, not the meal itself (i.e. sandwiches).

Knead the dough for 8 to 12 minutes, or until smooth and elastic.  You can use the dough hook in your stand mixer if you want (I do).  Cover and let rise 60 to 90 minutes, or until doubled.

Turn out on a lightly floured surface.  Flip it once or twice to get it a little dusty (it won't stick to your fingers this way--remember, the dough is pretty soft).

Then what I do is divide it into equal pieces before forming it into rolls.  I always double the recipe, so I cut my big hunk in half first, then again, then divide each quarter into twelve rolls.

Form balls by gently tucking those ugly ends underneath and forming a smooth surface on top.  Lots of people are better at it than I am; but you know by reading any other post I care more about what it tastes like than what it looks like.  Maybe some day I'll get both to happen at once.  But not with little children nippin' at my heels.

Cover those and let them rise 30 to 60 minutes, or until doubled in size.  Bake at 375 for 15 to 18 minutes, or until golden brown.

Dinner Rolls
adapted from Our Best Bites


2 cups milk (or 2 cups water with 1/2 cup milk powder)
1/3 cup butter

1 T yeast
2/3 cup warm water (about 100 degrees--baby bottle warm)

3 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp salt
8 to 9 cups flour (half whole wheat ok)

2 13x9 inch pans or 1 half sheet pan

Melt butter in milk; set aside and let cool to 100 degrees.  Proof yeast in warm water.  Mix eggs, sugar, salt and 3 to 4 cups flour into yeast mixture.  Add milk and butter and mix well.  Stir in remaining flour (up to 6 additional cups) and knead until dough is soft and pliable.  Cover and let rise until double, 60 to 90 minutes.  Punch down and turn out onto lightly floured surface.  Divide into 12 balls and form into rolls.  Place in greased pan; cover and let rise until double, about 30 minutes.  Uncover and bake at 375 for 15 to 18 minutes, or until golden brown. Brush with butter after pulling out of the oven if desired.

*can flash freeze after the rolls are formed and before the second rise.  To use, thaw on greased baking sheet, covered loosely in plastic wrap, for about 4 hours.  Uncover and bake as directed.

Lasagna

Lasagna is a family favorite at our house.  There's no major history to it, no secret family recipes.  But we all do love it.  When I was a kid, I had no concept of how much work it could entail, nor did I understand that it really could be pretty simple, too.  

When I got married, my husband told me it was one of his favorite dinners.  Since I was pretty scared of lasagna at that point, I took advantage of the Stauffer's factory outlet nearby our house and bought those large family size frozen lasagnas occasionally for $7 or $8 instead of $15.  Then I served it up feeling super awesome. 

When our first baby was born, we had a big family gathering and hosted a dinner.  My husband was the chef and made his mama's lasagna---5 large, actually!--and served it to the family.  Wow, it was amazing!  So then I would only make homemade lasagnas for our family from then on.  But it still had to be special-occasion for me; it took too long!

Then I discovered no-boil noodles.  All of a sudden, I knocked 20 minutes off the prep time, not to mention eliminating dealing with those huge, floppy, sticky noodles.

And then my own mama told me her secret:  just use the simple lasagna formula, and you can pretty much whip it up in about 5 minutes and throw it in the oven.  Really.  I'll teach you the formula today, and write the recipe for the hubby's favorite sauce at the end.

Here's the formula:  noodles, sauce, soft cheese, hard cheese, repeat.

You can sort of do with that whatever you like.  For my noodles, I chose no-boil.  For my sauce, I made up a homemade version in the crock pot.  For my soft cheese, I used cottage cheese with parmesan and parsley mixed in (you almost always add an egg to help give the lasagna something to hold it together).  And for my hard cheeses mozzarella and parmesan.

Simple layering now...a little sauce on the bottom helps it serve up a little easier.

noodles...

soft cheese...(looks like I was a little crazy and mixed up my layers; clearly the order is not SUPER important)

sauce...

hard cheese...

repeat.  End with your hard cheese, and plenty of it.

Lasagna


for the sauce:
1 lb. ground beef
1 28 oz can diced tomatoes
2 6 oz cans tomato paste
2 tsp garlic salt
1 1/2 tsp oregano
1 tsp thyme

soft cheese:
2 cups cottage cheese
1/2 cup grated parmesan
1 egg
2 T parsley

5 cups shredded mozzarella
1 box (for 13x9 inch pan) lasagna noodles

In the crock pot, combine all sauce ingredients and cook on low 6 to 8 hours.  Alternatively, brown meat in large skillet and add remaining ingredients, simmering until thick.  Mix all ingredients for soft cheese together in small bowl.  Cook noodles if necessary.  Grease the bottoms and sides of 13x9 inch pan.  Put layer of sauce on the bottom of pan, then layer noodles, sauce, soft cheese, and mozzarella. Repeat. On last layer, sprinkle 1/2 cup parmesan before finishing with mozzarella.  Can refrigerate for 2-3 days, freeze for up to 3 months, or bake immediately.   Bake covered with foil at 375 for 30 minutes, then uncover for last 10 minutes.  Remove from oven and let stand 15-20 minutes before cutting.

Slow Cooked Chicken Enchilada Chili

Last Sunday I woke up and realized that we were having company for dinner that night.  That realization was scary because I also knew that I had not made it to the grocery store the day before and we were pretty low on... well, everything.  I looked through my favorite cooking blogs and came across this recipe on Picky Palate.  I had everything for it and it would have to do.

I didn't take any pictures of the making because I honestly wasn't expecting it to be that great.  I was very pleasantly surprised.  The hubby loved it and requested that it be added to our regular meal list.  One thing I didn't have was red enchilada sauce.  I used this recipe and it did the trick, but only because it was mixed with other things.  I would probably go with a different one next time.  The sauce needed a lot of doctoring up and was definitely not something I would use on actual enchiladas.

The best thing about this recipe?  It is so EASY!  Enjoy :)

Slow Cooked Chicken Enchilada Chili
From: Picky Palate

• 2 large boneless skinless chicken breasts
• One 15 oz can corn, drained
• One 15 oz can black beans, drained
• One 10 oz can diced tomatoes
• 8 oz (1cup) red enchilada sauce
• 1/2 tsp kosher salt
• 1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
• 1/4 tsp garlic salt
• 1 Cup chicken broth (optional)
• Cooked steamed Rice, or tortillas

Place all ingredients into crock pot on hight heat.  Cook on hight for 4-5 hours, until chicken shreds easily with a fork.  Shred both breasts into bite size pieces and spoon over cooked rice or tortilla.  You can also add about 1 cup of chili to make it a bit saucier... totally optional.

Makes 8 servings.