Category: Food

It has gotten seriously ugly of late. The temperature has been above freezing for several days and it has been raining. It is a damp, slushy, drippy, icy mess! I guess the good news is that it is supposed to stay warm for the foreseeable future so we should be back to bare ground in a few days and ready to give Winter a fresh restart.

Meanwhile, something warm and comforting food-wise seemed like a good idea.

Last Winter, I started making a marinara from roasted veggies. I toss tomatoes, cauliflower, carrots…usually also broccoli – in a baking dish…spritz with olive oil, add salt and pepper and slowly roast everything in a low oven (275). When everything is tender, I add the veggies and a can of tomatoes with their juice to my Vita-mix and puree the lot! I simmer the result with oregano, sweet basil, garlic…adjust seasoning to taste.

The result is beautiful and delicious. I use it on pasta, with meatballs, for pizza sauce and for soup. This jar is only half the sauce made.

The rest, I freeze flat in Zip-loc bags…an idea I saw on Karin’s blog: Paper Route Designs.
Karin is the designer of the jar labels I use and love! Freezing sauces and broths flat allows you to break off just a little as needed.

I need only a small chunk of sauce for a single-serving pizza, pasta or bowl of tomato soup.

Soup, it was on this dreary day! A chunk of marinara, some vegetable broth, some cannelini beans – all in the Vita-mix and the result is a faux-cream* of tomato soup. I doctored it a little further with some chopped kale, pumpernickle croutons and a bit of parmesan. Perfect!

Bob says to save some for him, he’s on his way in!

*I’ve used pureed white beans: cannelini, navy and even garbanzo – to make brothy soups creamy. They do not taste “bean-y” to me but you get the added benefit of protein, fiber and other nutrients from the beans.

So…Brioche!

The Brioche I made for my Christmas morning “sweet” was another recipe from the “Artisan Bread in 5 minutes a Day” book. I started making the high moisture/no knead breads over a year ago and have been using the formula to make a variation on Portuguese Broa, a Rye and a light whole wheat dough. I use those doughs to make mini boules, English muffins, Naan-type flatbread and pizza crust. I have not purchased bread since I started using this technique.

As Christmas approached…and I had eaten all of the Pecan sweet rolls that my mother sent home with me…I was deciding what to make for my Christmas morning sweet roll… I looked through the “Artisan Bread…” pastry section and didn’t get further than the Almond Bostock Brioche. I had Almond Paste that was fast approaching its expiration date so win-win!

The Brioche dough, like all of the high moisture/no knead doughs is a “dump everything in the bowl, give it a stir and let it sit for a bit” procedure… easy-peasy :)!

Above is the after “give it a stir” photo…

Oh…the complicated step…cover it loosely with wrap…

I put it on this little side table as there is a heater just underneath so it is a warm spot.

Meantime, I get on with my life for 3-4 hours.

Then…scoop the dough into a crock of some sort that can go in the frig. It needs to be NOT air tight. I use a ceramic crock with lid. The brioche dough is a bit different than the “flour/salt/yeast/water” doughs as it has eggs, honey and butter in it and as such, needs to be used within 5 days versus the other doughs that can go 7-10 days. I make a half recipe of all of the doughs and so far manage to use them up in the recommended time frame.

Continuing with the brioche…

To make the almond bostock rolls, I made an almond filling of almond paste, egg, flour and almond extract in my mini-prep food processor (recipe from the cookbook). The photo below shows the finished filling and the last bit of brioche dough that went into this morning’s batch of almond bostock:

The rollup…roll the dough into a 1/4 inch thick rectangle. Spread the filling within a 1/2 inch of the edge of the rectangle.

After rolling the dough around the filling, the resulting “log” goes in the freezer for 10-15 minutes to make it easier to slice into pieces for rolls.

Sliced log…into a pan thoroughly greased with butter and then sugar sprinkled…add a “crumb topping” of almonds, turbinado sugar and orange zest…

And you end up with gorgeous rolls that taste like bear claws with a bit of orange flavor. They are divine!!

In the background you can see a plain brioche with poppy seeds – cut open.

The plain brioche is a sweet bread with a wonderfully light custardy crumb and a crisp crust – YUM with butter and jam and a cup of strong coffee!

For the chocolate brioche – same procedure as for the almond bostock, except that a chocolate ganache (chocolate and cream) filling was used instead of the almond filling.

Seriously easy and the result is less flaky than a croissant but much flakier than a normal bread dough…a pastry that I enjoyed very much and will enjoy now and again and again!