SWEET SATURDAYS: Awesome Bread made into Focaccia

Oh, sweet bread, you are so tasty, and addictive.

In Anna's awesome Rustic Artisanal No-knead Bread, which I've been making every weekend for the last month or so, she mentions that you can turn the dough into Focaccia, so I made an extra batch of dough this weekend and made it into two Focaccias, they turned out great.

Linking with Sweet Saturdays pop over and take a look at all the sweet things.

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SWEET SATURDAYS: For the love of bread

I've finally found a bread recipe that I'm super happy with! I have tried copious amounts of different recipes, so this is a big thing for me. It's that good, I've been making it every Saturday for the last three weeks.

This is my kind of Bread recipe, it tastes awesome, and you don't have to be in the kitchen for hours kneading every few hours, you can leave it, forget about it, while time works it's magic. Let me warn you though, you will have to start it the day before you are wanting it, as the first rise is 12-24hrs. It's so worth it!

I've been adjusting the flour (Plain - Wholemeal) ratio with the goal to see if it can be made with all Wholemeal flour. Below are photo's of the different ratios I've tried so far.

 

2 cups White Flour, 1 cup Wholemeal Flour

1 ½  cups White Flour, 1 ½ cups Wholemeal Flour

1  cups White Flour, 2 cups Wholemeal Flour

I found this recipe over on Pinterest, but for some reason I did not 'like' it or pin it, so I can not find the original blog post to give credit to this awesome blogger (if you know, please let me know).

AMENDED March 3 2012: Great news, I found the original source!  http://annastable.blogspot.com.au/2011/01/rustic-artisanal-no-knead-bread.html

 AWESOME BREAD

3 cups Flour

¼ teaspoon dry yeast

1 ½ teaspoon salt

1 ½ cup warm water

In a mixing bowl add all the flour, yeast and salt. Using a spoon blend the dry ingredients.

Pour 1 ½ cups of water and mix. Pull together the dough using spoon.

Scrape any excess flour from the bottom and sides of bowl, making sure the ingredients are well incorporated and form into a ball. The dough will have a stringy texture.

Place a piece of plastic wrap on the bowl to avoid the dough from drying out. Allow to rise in a warm dry, and draft free place for at least 12 hours and up to 24 hrs.

Dust a large piece of foil or parchment paper with flour to prevent the dough from sticking during it's second rising. Scrape the risen dough onto the floured surface.

Sprinkle some flour on the dough to prevent it from sticking to your hands. Lightly pat down the dough with your hands to form a circle piece of dough measuring approximately 25 cm.

Fold both side edges to the center of the dough, take the top edge and fold into the center, doing the same with the bottom edge of the dough.

Turn the dough and place the folded side of the dough onto the floured foil or parchment paper and dust with flour to prevent sticking.

Loosely cover with a clean tea towel, Place in a warm and dry place and allow to rise a second time for 2 hours.

Place the ceramic casserole dish with it's cover on the second rack from the bottom of your stove's oven. Preheat the oven to 250.c. Dust the smooth side of the risen dough with flour to prevent it from sticking to the bottom while baking.

Once the oven reaches the required temperature. Remove the pot from the oven and take the cover off (be very careful, the pot will be HOT, make sure you use oven mittens to prevent burning your hands). Place the dough, folded sides down and cover. Bake for 30 minutes at 250.c

Remove pot from oven with oven mittens and take off cover. The bread should have a golden crust and sound hollow when taped (while still hot).

Cool the bread in the pot for a few minutes until the bread sinks off the sides and remove with a spatula and oven mitten. Allow to cool on a cooling rack and cut once cool.

Enjoy.

I did take step by step photos of the process, which I will upload in a post soon.

AMENDED March 3 2012: Slap my wrist, I still have not uploaded the step by step photos. I will, but in the mean time, you can see Anna's step by step photos here:  http://annastable.blogspot.com.au/2011/01/rustic-artisanal-no-knead-bread.html

Wishing you all a fantastic weekend. xx

Linking with: Sweet Saturdays

Pin-ter-vention: Slow Cooked Goodness

With all the rainy weather we have been having, it's been perfect for slow cooking!
Below are two recipes from Pinterest that I've tried recently.

YUMMY

{Slow Cook Beef Goulash}

  Adapted from Adora's Box's Beef Goulash

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• 500g braising steak, cut into cubes
• 500g of Veggies - Capsicum, Zucchini and Carrot
  
• flour seasoned with salt and pepper for dredging
•   4 tbsps. olive oil
• 3 cloves of garlic, crushed
• 2 medium onions, sliced
• 1 tbsp. paprika
• 2 tbsps. tomato paste
• 2 c. beef stock
• 1 tsp of dry thyme
• 1/4 c.  sour cream
  

Slice the beef into approximately 2"x1"x1/4 thick slices and dust lightly with the seasoned flour. Shake off the excess. Brown, a few at a time, in a mixture of the olive oil. Set aside. In the same pan, saute the garlic for 1 minute, then add the onions and cook until soft. Add the paprika and the tomato paste. Blend well. Set aside. Cook the Veggies in the same pan until slightly brown. Transfer to an oven proof casserole then add the beef, onion mix, the 2 c. of boiling stock and the thyme. Stir gently then cook in the oven for 1 hour and fifteen minutes or until the beef is tender. When done, stir in the Sour cream. Serve with boiled potatoes or rice.

More like Muffin/Cake? 
{Slow Cook Bread}

  from http://www.food.com's Couldn't Be Easier Slow Cooker Bread

Great with Jam or Honey.

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• 1 tablespoon yeast
• 1/4 cup warm water
• 1 cup warm skim milk or 1 cup buttermilk
• 1/2 cup rolled oat
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 1 whole egg
• 1/4 cup wheat germ
• 2 3/4 cups whole wheat flour

• Grease a deep metal or glass bowl or 1 lb coffee can (we use a glass 18 cm Pyrex soufflé dish); turn slow-cooker on high to preheat.
• Dissolve yeast in water; combine with milk, oats, salt, oil, honey, egg, and wheat germ.
• Add flour and knead until smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes.
• Turn dough immediately into bowl or can; cover LOOSELY with foil.
• In bottom of slow-cooker, place 1/2 cup of water and a trivet or some crumpled foil.
• Place can or bowl on this; cover and bake on High for 3 hours.

Note: sides of bread brown and crisp beautifully, top will slightly brown and be soft to touch.

Yield: 1 medium sized loaf of bread.

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Tastes like KFC!

I'm always on the look out for healthy dinners to cook, this week when I discovered Our Life Uncommon's Baked Fried Chicken recipe on Pinterest, I knew I had to try it, as it boasted to taste like KFC, looked simple to make, and best of all it's a healthy alternative to Deep Fried Chicken! The Chicken, along with some roasted veggies and Notatoe Croquettes {that ended up more like mash Notatoes} were prepared and consumed as part of last nights dinner. The Chicken got a big thumbs up and trumped our usual crumbed chicken recipe {which I never thought would happen}. WIN! Our dinner guests like it so much, they even went home with the recipe. And my husband took the recipe into work this morning to share around.

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TASTES LIKE KFC

{Baked Fried Chicken}

 adapted from Our Life Uncommon's Baked Fried Chicken

{    } = Additions I've made when cooking it a second time 

1. Place thawed Chicken {Thigh Fillets halved} in a bowl of milk. 

Let soak for 20-30 min.

2. In a large bowl mix:

1/2 tsp. Salt, 1 T Season All, 3/4 tsp Pepper, 1 c. Flour {W/meal}, 2 tsp. Paprika.
{Add 1T Oregano - It's even better! }

3. Preheat oven to 200.c  Add 1T Olive Oil and 1tsp butter on a cooking tray.

Place tray in pre-heated oven to melt butter
{Omit Butter and replace with 1T Oil - Doesn't effect the taste}

4. Spread melted butter/oil around the tray, make sure that there are no dry spots.

5. Shake excess milk off of chicken and completely coat each piece with the seasoning mix. 

Place each piece of chicken on to the tray.

6. Cook for 40 min or until cooked through.
{Turn Chicken at 20 min mark - for crisper coating}

ENJOY! 

***

We also had: 

 Moon Pies adapted from  Epicurious' Mini Chocolate Cakewiches .

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