Biscuits and munchees

Tonight's dinner is a strange one. I made a double batch of my yeast multigrain biscuits and ended up with about 40 rather than 24. My plan is to share some with my dad and his wife, so it's not a big deal. Since I had so many, I lightly brushed a dozen of them with olive oil and sprinkled with asiago and Parmesan cheese.

Dinner tonight is:
- two multigrain biscuits, one with maple syrup and Morningstar breakfast patty and the other is a cheese biscuit with butter
- our vegetable is health is wealth spinach munchees
- our beverage is apple juice

(the meal is intentionally light because child has girl scouts and they always feed her a snack. At 4:30)

More pizza

Tonight we made pizza. Used the recipe for crust I devised in April for skillet pizza (tried to link above). Clicking pizza or le creuset below could lead there...

Only one cheese tonight: mozzarella

The sauce was Wegmans chunky pizza sauce (selected for its high vitamin A count).

Toppings: whole black olives from Aldi that we sliced ourselves, Morningstar vegetarian bacon and spinach (canned, a 'gift.')

Appetizer Sandwiches

I made multigrain bread this morning, and for lunch we had hot bread and leftover beef stew/beouf Borgogne with the garden greenbeans from the freezer. We still have some for lunch tomorrow.

Now, husband (wonderful husband) is concocting little tuna melts on the bread, and I believe little pork sandwiches with the leftover loin from last night, and the Italian salad kit from Dole. Oh, and small servings of Kraft Mac and Cheese with peas leftover from some other day.

We are nearing desperate lack of groceries, but he gets paid tomorrow so I'm trying to get by on what's in the house. Most of what is in the house is meat from a friend who gave us a care package, and I'm not that into meat.

I had considered spaghetti and sausage for tonight, but we don't have sauce and we ate all the fresh tomatoes from the garden.

I was about to charge a pizza when husband decided to make fancy little sandwiches with salad. It will be interesting to see his concoctions.

Bruschetta pizza

While anemia and a heat wave do not make prime conditions for cooking, herbs and tomatoes ripening in the garden demand attention. And good food.

My garden has yielded five more tomatoes since I made bruschetta last week and my mother decided I needed the first two tomatoes from her garden.

So today my daughter and I made homemade pizza dough. We started with a cup of warm water, two tablespoons of yeast, a dollop of honey and a dollop of blackstrap molasses. We added 1.5 cups unbleached white flour, 3/4 cup wheat flour, and 1/4 cup rye flour. I stirred and kneaded as she went to the garden for a heap of basil. I shredded about six leaves of basil, probably about three tablespoons and we kneaded that into the dough.

While that rose (about an hour), I made about three cups of bruschetta. This required close to 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil, six small tomatoes chopped, about 1/3 cup chopped basil leaves, 2/3 teaspoon four color peppercorns, 1 teaspoon garlic powder, 1/2 teaspoon garlic salt and about 1/4 cup grated romano cheese.

When the dough was done, I sprinkled a long jelly roll pan with cornmeal. I rolled out the dough on my dishwasher and coated the bottom lightly with cornmeal. Then I dampened my hands with olive oil and patted the bottom of the dough before I put it in the pan and finished spreading it out.

I dumped the bruschetta on, added bites of broccoli, covered with 8 ounces of mozzerella and added some more basil on top for pretty.

It's baking and I'm STARVED.

Garlic Multigrain Biscuits

This afternoon I made my multigrain yeast biscuits that I invented a couple weeks ago. They are in the oven now. I changed the liquid from 1.5 cups warm milk to 1+ cup warm soy milk, one container papa john's garlic sauce and 1/2 cup warm water.

I hope to serve them tonight with a meat and cheese platter, dates, and organic spring mix with bacon dressing (I got out of the freezer).

A friend stopped by today with various meats, some cheese and some vegetables so any shopping I do in July will be skewed if you're tracking how much I spend.

Experimental Yeast Multigrain Biscuits

I have a batch of skillet biscuits, one of my first attempts at really cooking in a while. I greased the skillet with butter, more for flavor than need and topped the butter with some cornmeal.

This experiment is based on some of my other biscuits.

I started with:
- 2 cups unbleached white flour
- 1 cup wheat flour
- 1/2 cup rye flour
- 1/2 cup cornmeal
- 1/4 cup flax seed
- 1/2 stick butter
- 1 heaping tablespoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon iodized sea salt

Mix just until incorporated. Then I mixed in a separate container:
- 1 1/2 cup warm soy milk
- 1 teaspoon yeast
- 1 teaspoon honey

I let that rest until bubbly and combined the two mixtures. Then I kneaded briefly, rolled about 3/4 inch thick, cut with a glass, and put in skillet. I let the skillet rest with a towel over it on the oven for 15 minutes while it preheated to 400 degrees. Put the skillet it for 13 minutes.

12 biscuits (I think) that we hope to have for breakfast with Jarslberg cheese and Morningstar vegetarian sausages.

Veg Sausage Biscuits

My daughter slept late today and so my husband did not make us cream of wheat as he does most days.

My daughter had a small bowl of cocoa pebbles with whole milk when she woke. (A gift from her mimi, I didn't buy them.)

Then at nine a.m., I got two of my multigrain biscuits out of the freezer and two Morningstar breakfast patties (vegetarian sausage) and made little sausage biscuits with ketchup, served with a serving of 100% fruit juice and one of my oatmeal-dried fruit cookies from yesterday.

Multigrain Biscuits (experiment)

• almost one cup unbleached Wegmans all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup corn meal
• 2/3 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/4 cup rye flour
• 1/4 cup flax seed

(for a total of about three cups "flour")

• 1 generous tablespoon baking powder

mix thoroughly. Add:

• a tad more than 1/2 teaspoon iodized sea salt

fold in:

• 6 tablespoons butter

Add:

• one cup soy milk

Knead. Cut with bottom of glass once pressed thin. Mine made 19 biscuits. Bake at 400 degrees for 12-15 minutes.
based on:
http://angelfoodcooking.blogspot.com/2009/06/brown-biscuits.html

More Super Salads! (Croutons)

We're having more salad tonight (It's a spring thing for me. I *want* it.) I bought fresh spinach to add to last night's salads and we're transforming my last homemade baguette into homemade seasoned croutons.

We heated the oven to three hundred.

We sliced the bread, put it in a bowl, drizzled some extra virgin olive oil on it, and sprayed it down with cooking spray. My daughter mixed them all up and we poured generous amounts of the following in there:

• garlic powder
• pizza and pasta seasoning
  
• parmesan cheese
• parsley
• four color organic peppercorn
• garlic pepper

And bake as long as it takes, turning every 15 minutes of so. They smell scrumptious.

Grilled Cheese in Le Creuset?

Is it sacrilegious to make a grilled cheese sandwich in a Le Creuset skillet?
(Probably, but I'm a rebel.)

• Multigrain sandwich bread from Giant (yes, I've been ill so no homemade bread)
• Velveeta (a gift from Gayle)
• Neufchâtel cheese
• perhaps some shredded cheddar
  
• lots of butter
• honey
• a hint of garlic pepper
• a hint of extra virgin olive oil

Step one: lightly grease the skillet with olive oil, sprinkle with about 1/8 teaspoon garlic pepper and heat the pan on extremely low heat.

Step two: generously butter bread on on one side. Put one slice of bread from each sandwich in the skillet, butter side down.

Step three: spread a thin layer of neufchâtel or cream cheese on the unbuttered side of the lid of the sandwich, the piece not in the pan.

Step four: cut enough thin slices of velveeta to cover the bread in the pan. Go ahead and put the cheese on the bread.

Step five: increase heat in skillet to medium.

Step six: put the cream cheese-laden lids onto the sandwich.

Step seven: sprinkle each with a pinch of garlic pepper.

Step eight: frequently press down on the sandwich with a turner/spatula. After about three minutes, flip the sandwich and press down more. Let the bottom brown, flip again. When the other side is brown, smear about 1/2 teaspoon of honey on each sandwich side. Let the honey cook on the bread for about 30 seconds. More than that and it will burn.

Note:
The skillet heated slow and evenly AND fit two whole and one half-sandwich at the same time. It made a beautiful sandwich, though I did burn some honey to the pan.
Served to my family with juice diluted with selzter, raw carrots and dip, and the sandwich.

French Bread Pizza

I took a loaf of my multigrain French bread, sliced it and piled it high with tomato sauce and diced tomatoes, seasoned with four-color pepper, pasta and pizza seasoning, and fresh garlic. I toasted it in the oven. Then I added fresh broccoli and more sauce, cooked it some more, then added some grated pepper jack and lots of cheddar.

Magic Toast

I have said before that the multigrain sandwich bread from Giant makes the best toast in the world... I had a slice for breakfast with imported French butter.

Turkey and Brie sandwiches

Today's lunch was a subtle variation on last night's dinner.

Today, we had simple turkey sandwiches with brie and lettuce, on multigrain sandwich bread from Giant, and seedless red raspberry jelly from Wegmans. Then for a side we had the leftover Dole Italian Salad with chianti vinaigrette and I added dried cherries for a new flavor.

Fabulous. Heavenly. So simple and so cheery.

Cinnamon sugar toast

It's a snowy, slushy day. And we have next to no everyday items like milk and eggs. I made some gorgeous multigrain bread yesterday (and brought it to class where the professor very adeptly sliced it into equal slices for the entire class).

My bread is one of my wheat-white-rye concoctions...

My daughter asked for something hot for breakfast so I made my stepmother's specialty: toast with cinnamon sugar. My stepmother does not cook, and when I first visited their house she would offer me toast with cinnamon sugar. I had never had it before so it was an incredible treat.

Today, I made the same thing for my daughter, with real butter, on homemade multigrain bread.

Bizarre little breakfast

I already have some multigrain bread (unbleached white, whole wheat and rye flour) rising... My daughter and husband had a special lunch out yesterday to commemorate the end of the semester and the end of "lunch with Daddy" days while Mommy is in class. My daughter ordered a white Sicilian with broccoli and sausage from Pizza Doro. We'll probably have that for lunch (and I'm thinking I'll let her have ice cream after, her kindergarten teacher will love me for that.)

For breakfast I served my daughter a clementine, some cashews and graham crackers. Not standard, but good stuff.

Fruity Baked French Toast

I can't find my recipe for baked French toast, but this won't stop me. I'm combining the vegan recipe for French toast, my imagination and my leftover homemade bread from Thanksgiving...

• 8 slices homemade white bread
• 8 slices homemade multigrain bread
• 4 large eggs
• 2/3 cup homemade applesauce
• 1 banana
• juice of 1 clementine
• 1 cup soymilk
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon nutmeg

Okay, so the jury is out on whether this one will "work." In a bowl, I mixed: the eggs, applesauce, banana, juice, milk, honey and vanilla. I dipped the bread into the mix and layered it into my greased (with butter) 11x 7 casserole dish. Then I added the cinnamon and the nutmeg to the egg mix and poured over the bread. (I had two layers of bread.)

I'm baking and 350 and then I figure I'll broil it depending on how much of the liquid gets absorbed.

After 20 minutes at 350, most of the liquid absorbed, but it was still mushy, so I rearranged it a bit and increased heat to 420, for another 10 minutes...

As the pieces got crispy, I served with cream cheese and my mother-in-law's blueberry topping.

Now, if you'd rather try a recipe for vegan French toast, here you go (from Eileen Bresslin):

• 1 cup soy milk
• 1 cup orange juice
• 10 slices stale bread
• vegetable oil
• cinnamon

Mix soy milk and orange juice, dip bread in mix lightly (do NOT let bread get soggy) sprinkle with cinnamon and fry in oiled skillet.

Frantic!

When did it get to be after 11? I got off the phone with my daughter's potential girl scout leader and looked at the clock and let's just say lunch should have been on the table... and it's not.

So I whipped up a fried egg on storebought seven grain bread with ketchup, served with pretzels and fresh strawberries and white grape juice diluted with seltzer.