Traditional Egg Bread (Challah)

NOTE:

If you are using this for Runza, after the first rise, roll the dough, follow the Runza directions – rolling the dough, fill, and seal.  Allow these to sit for about 20 minutes for the second rise.  Bake per the Runza directions.

We (and by “We”, I mean my son and I), are trying to create some new traditions, and make new memories.  It’s been hard after the divorce to not be saddened by what /was/, and instead, be happy with with /is/.  And so I decided to do some new things this year, one of which is to make some different foods.  This recipe, though I have made it in the past on occasion,  is not something I would normally make.  First, I don’t often use refrigerator rolls, and second, it’s rather too much for the two of us.  But it is Christmas, and I did want new/different foods.

This version of Monkey Bread, aka Pully Bread, Pull Apart Bread, Picky Bread, Pinch Me Cake – whatever you may know it by, (and in the end, whatever it is you choose to call it), is ridiculously silly easy.  With the plethora of names this recipe is known by, there are 1000x that many versions of this recipe.  I bring nothing new to the recipe whatsoever.  It just happens to be what I decided to make, and to share here. Listed below the recipe are a few other versions.

With supervision (the caramel/syrup is just  too hot for little ones), this version of the recipe can be made by kids, and takes only about 10 minutes..maybe 15 minutes from start of prep to entry into the oven.

Quick and Easy Monkey Bread with Pecans

3 12-ounce tubes refrigerator biscuits, or rolls (like the Pillsbury type) (or a double recipe of your favorite yeast bread)
1 cup sugar
3 tablespoons cinnamon
1/2 cup butter
1 1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup chopped pecans (up to 1 cup, if you like, and I do!!)
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1/2 cup raisins, dried currants, or dried cranberries (or similar)

Open the tubes and remove the ready-to-bake rolls or biscuits.  The object is to cut each piece into 4 pieces.  I try and remove the rolls from the package all in one full roll, slice longways in half twice, making 4 long pieces, and then pull them apart into the quarter section.

The traditional pan to use is a “bundt pan”.  I don’t happen to have one, so I used a disposable aluminum pan – a double long bread pan

size. (as shown here). Spray well with ‘Pam’, or oil well with vegetable oil and set aside.  You don’t want to use a regular bread pan size as it is too small for this recipe – it needs to be double long.

In a ziplock bag, pour in the 1 cup of sugar, and the 3 tablespoons cinnamon.  Zip it closed and shake it to mix.  Put 1/2 of the cut up biscuits/rolls into the bag, zip to close, and shake until all the pieces are well covered. Put these pieces into the pan.  Get the remaining pieces ready to go, by putting them into the ziplock bag.  Shake them, and leave them in the bag for now.

Meanwhile, put the butter and brown sugar into a saucepan.  Stir often, and then, once the butter and sugar start to melt, stir until the sugar is dissolved.  Boil for about 1 minute.

Once this has boiled, pour 1/2 over the pieces in the pan.  Sprinkle with 1/4 cup of the pecans, and half of the remaining cinnamon.  Cover this with the remaining pieces from the ziplock bag, and pour the remaining half of the butter/brownsugar syrup overtop.  Cover with the rest of the nuts and cinnamon.

Bake at 350F for 40-45 minutes.  Once this is done, remove from the oven and allow to set at least 10 minutes.  Turn out onto a serving dish or platter.  This will be VERY hot, so be careful.

Notes:

• Use walnuts, pecans, hazelnuts, macadamia nuts — whatever suits your fancy
• I like this with a lot of cinnamon — it just makes it taste so nice — I sprinkle a bit extra over everything ;)
• I’ve doubled this fine, but used a large, deep double cake pan.
• This is good leftover, heated in the oven at 350 for 5-10 minutes.

Other Monkey Bread recipes of interest:

• Alton Brown’s version, Overnight Monkey Bread
• Various versions of Monkey Bread — with lots of variations, from savory, to sweet
• Cooks.com – lots of different versions and ways to make Monkey Bread

I first made these one year when we had “leftover” Thanksgiving guests — they stayed for the weekend.  I needed something simple, because I was literally all cooked out from the day before.  I didn’t have flatbread, and instead used tortillas, but these were a big hit with everyone.

The recipe is a fluid one — it can be changed easily, depending upon what you have left from the big meal.  The last time I made this, I used leftover salad – lettuce, diced carrots, onions, tomatoes, black olives – in place of the spinach, tomato, onion that is in the recipe below.  It was one less thing to have to prep.

The recipe for flatbread is included below — literally, and I’m not kidding – 5-7 minutes prep, 6-10 minutes cooking, and these are ready.  They are quick, and so simple.  And once you make them, you really will be amazed at how often you will add them into your recipes, replacing sliced bread, or tortillas.

Oh, I can’t wait for this!!!

Enjoy!

Turkey, Avocado, Spinach and Bleu Cheese Flatbread Sandwiches

2 cups cooked turkey
2 green onions, chopped
1 Roma tomato, seeded and chopped
1 avocado, chopped
1/3 red onion, minced
1/3 vinaigrette
4-6 pieces of flatbread (recipe below), or tortillas
2 cups fresh spinach, chopped
1 cup Gorgonzola, crumbled * see note

Gently mix the turkey, onion, tomato, onion and avocado – you don’t want the avocado to become mush.  Add in the vinaigrette and stir gently.  To serve, put the turkey mixture into a flatbread or tortilla and top with the spinach and blue cheese.  Roll and serve.

Notes:

• Replace the Gorgonzola with any type of bleu cheese you might like
• Replace the Gorgonzola bleu cheese with gouda cheese, or, for that matter, almost any other kind of cheese that you may prefer
• Use tortillas in place of the Flatbread.

Quick Flatbread

3 cups flour
1 cup cold water
3 tablespoons shortening
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda

Combine all the ingredients, cutting in the shortening, and mix until combined and doughy.

Now, there are a couple of ways to do this:

• Cut the dough into 5 equal pieces, and roll each piece into 6-8 inch circles

Or

• Roll out the whole batch into a large rectangle.  Make a slice directly across the middle, so you have a top and bottom piece, and then cut those in 3rds, so you end up with 6 smaller squares.

Once you’ve gotten these rolled out and sized, prick the pieces with a fork — at least 7-8 times on each piece.

To cook, lightly oil a non-stick pan (Spray with Pam very lightly).  Cook over medium-high heat, and turn once.  These cook fast, so watch them carefully.  Be fully prepared to ruin the first ;)

There are tons of uses for these – just think this:

1. A leafy vegetable
2. A tomato of some kind
3. A protein of some kind
4. Cheese of some kind
5. Put on a flatbread, and eat!!

LOL — But really, flatbread is really incredibly versatile.  You’ll find all sorts of good uses for it.

Quick Flatbread

3 cups flour
1 cup cold water
3 tablespoons shortening
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda

Combine all the ingredients, cutting in the shortening, and mix until combined and doughy.

Now, there are a couple of ways to do this:

• Cut the dough into 5 equal pieces, and roll each piece into 6-8 inch circles

Or

• Roll out the whole batch into a large rectangle.  Make a slice directly across the middle, so you have a top and bottom piece, and then cut those in 3rds, so you end up with 6 smaller squares.

Once you’ve gotten these rolled out and sized, prick the pieces with a fork — at least 7-8 times on each piece.

To cook, lightly oil a non-stick pan (Spray with Pam very lightly).  Cook over medium-high heat, and turn once.  These cook fast, so watch them carefully.  Be fully prepared to ruin the first ;)

I don’t mind these, though they of course don’t taste like real crossoints.  But as a quick bread for a meal, they aren’t too bad.

Today, though, I opened the tube, unrolled the dough, and added some brown sugar and cinnamon, with a tiny dollop of butter, and baked them at 375F until they were golden brown. They were light little cinnamon rolls.  Not too bad.

I know there are a lot of different uses for these crescent rolls — wrapping little hot dogs, wrapping brie, wrapping cream cheese and jam, etc.  But I thought for those that needed an idea, and had these on hand, it might be worth this quick little post.

This recipe is one I got from a bed and breakfast — Sunshines Bed and Breakfast –  in upstate New York, about 10 years ago.  The b&b was lovely — a huge house, with 3 smaller cabins, on about 40 acres.  It had this lovely lake, with the most beautiful swans — I wanted to stay forever.   The woman who ran the b&b served breakfast one morning by the lake, and this is what we had — They were tender, delicious and just freaking amazing.  Best of all, she had no problem sharing the recipe, as it is one she received from a fellow b&b owner.  I have no idea where the recipe originated, but I do know that it is simply fantastic.

She served the pancakes with maple syrup, but to me that just never seemed quite right.  The maple syrup overshadowed the apples.  So, I started playing around with different syrups, and finally came up with the one that is here.  I really enjoy apples, and being able to use them in as many was as possible.  The syrup was just one more way for me to utilize the bushels of apples I always have in the Autumn.  You can use it on regular pancakes as well.  Or, use it on ice cream.. or bread pudding.. or apple bread…or spread on toast.. it’s almost endless what you can use it for.

Baked Cinnamon Apple Pancakes with Warm Apple Cider Syrup

4 eggs
1/2 cup flour
1 Tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/16 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
4 Tablespoons melted butter, divided
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
2 medium apples *See Note

Combine the eggs, flour, 1 tablespoon of sugar, baking powder, salt and the milk in a bowl, and mix until smooth.  Add in 2 tablespoons of melted butter, vanilla and the nutmeg.  Allow to sit overnight in the refrigerator. (Or, if you are like me, let it sit on the counter for about 45 minutes before using).

The next morning, (or 45 minutes later), heat the oven to 425F.  Melt the remaining butter in a large (10-12 inch) ovenproof skillet.  Spread the butter all over the pan, including the sides, and then remove from the heat.

Next, mix the sugar, cinnamon, 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg.  Sprinkle about 1/2 of this mixture over the butter in the skillet.

Peel, core and thinly slice the apples, and layer the slices over the butter/sugar in the skillet.  Overlap if necessary, but try to keep the layers pretty thin.

Return the skillet to the stove, and over medium-high heat, cook just until you start to see small bubbles.  Pour the patter slowly over the apples.  If you pour it too fast, the apples will become unseated and move around.  You want the apples to be as evenly spread out as possible for more tasty goodness.

Move the skillet to the oven and bake for 15 minutes, reducing the heat after 15 minutes to 375, and then bake for another 10 minutes.

Serve with Warm Apple Cider Syrup (recipe here), or just sprinkle with confectioners (10x or icing sugar), and serve immediately.

Notes:

You can use 1 large apple in place of 2 medium apples.  I just like the 2 medium apples, because then I use 2 different types of apples.

With the abundance of apples, I went through all my recipes, and though I will post some of my own as the season progresses, I found this recipe — The Official New York State Apple Muffin — in the files.  The subheading states: “The apple muffin was adopted as the State muffin in 1987 as a result of the efforts of elementary students throughout New York State.” I actually recall making this recipe with my son when he was in 3rd grade, at the school with his classmates.   It’s a good recipe, and as muffin recipes go, simple to do.

I am making these tomorrow, again with my son — he’s in 9th grade now — and I know we’ll have fun making them, and even more fun eating them.  Knowing him, these won’t last too long, either ;)

Official New York State Apple Muffin

For the Topping:
1/2 cup walnuts
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon lemon peel, grated
2 tablespoons melted butter.

For the Muffins:
1 cups New York State Empire Apples, peeled, cored and chopped
2 cups flour
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup walnuts
3 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup butter, melted
4 ounces cream cheese, softened and cut into small pieces
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Topping:
Combine the ingredints for the topping and set aside.

Muffins:
Combine apples, raisins, walnuts, eggs, butter, cream cheese, and vanilla.

Add in the dry ingredients a little at a time to the apple mixture.  Stir until just combined.  Do not over mix.

Portion the batter into lightly greased and floured muffin tins, (or use muffin papers).  Sprinkle the muffins with the topping, and bake at 375F for 20-25 minutes.

This recipe makes about 2 dozen muffins.

Growing up in the mid-west — Nebraska — fry bread was easy to come by. It’s a Native American food, that, as far as I know, is found in almost all of the US dating back to the late 1800′s when lack of food on ‘Indian Reservations’ made this a necessity.

Think of Fry Bread as a thick version of a tortilla. The bread be made one of two methods — using either yeast, or baking powder. I have always preferred the baking powder method, as below.

Enjoy!

Fry Bread

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 tablespoons baking powder
4 tablespoons vegetable shortening
2/3 cup milk
Oil for frying

Combine the flour, salt and baking powder and shortening. Mix well, until the shortening is blended in. Add water and mix well again. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured board and knead until smooth – 2-3 minutes. Separate the dough into 6 equal portions and roll out into circles.

If you have a cast iron pan, this is the perfect opportunity to use it. Heat the oil — I suppose around 370-375F, but otherwise, heat the oil until dropping a bit of dough into the oil fries it quickly.

Place each piece into the hot oil, and cook 20-30 seconds on each side — until golden brown. Remove from the oil, and drain.

Now is the fun part ..

You can eat these just as they are, or fill or cover them with /anything/. Like chocolate?

• Nutella.. O.O..mmmmy
• Thick cherry filling, and then sprinkled with powdered sugar.
• Refried beans, diced onions, black olives, sour cream and a bit of taco sauce
• Rice and beans
• Spread with honey
• Sprinkle Cinnamon Sugar on these while hot
• Chili
• Or anything your imagination can come up with.

A lovely 13.2 pound, salt-brined turkey awaits my oven, with sausage dressing, creamed corn, egg bread, and a lovely pumpkin pie on my list to make for our Thanksgiving dinner. It is just the two of us – my son and I, again, and with all the food we are going to make, I think we’ll be having a lot of left-overs the following week.

Thanksgiving used to be just about the food I made — making dishes that were delicious and impressive – that made my Thanksgiving good. But as I have changed and grown over the past 2 years, I’ve realized this Thanksgiving, in this 2007 year, that, though we are making the traditional foodage, Thanksgiving isn’t about just the food anymore to me anymore. It’s about the experience, and making good memories with my son. It’s the idea of being grateful, thankful, and appreciative of the important people in my life – my son, Sander, and my friends — Ken, Scott, Nicky, Mark & Al… none of them I could have made it without this past year and a half, and all of whom have enriched my life in one way or another.

I have a lot of memories of Thanksgiving day ..

• 30-60 people at dinner when I was growing up — Either at my Mother’s Step-Mothers house, or my Fathers Grandmothers house
• Football — Always the best when Dallas plays Denver, and gets the crap beat out of them by my beloved Broncos ;) And if we were at the above big-family gatherings, football games outside — 3 or 4 of them. The little ones..3-8 years old, dashing in and out of the adults with a scream in their voice; the older ones .. 9-15 year olds, trying to impress the older guys, who, of course, were trying to get their fathers and uncles fired up enough to get up off the porch and come and play .. just to show the younger one’s “how it’s done, boy”.
• Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade — It was always on TV when I was growing up, and is in my house now. I do live in NY, and have gone to the parade a few times.. but, tbh, it’s always too damned cold, too damned crowded, and it always seems to rain. I swear, the last 3 times I’ve gone, it’s rained or been so cold I was a solid block of Parade Background, stuck between the building and some very drunk guy standing on a ladder, screaming in semi-ecstasy at the giant Bart Simpson balloon. This year, I’ll pass and stay nice and toasty warm in my house, tyvm. There is always next year. Maybe.
• Quiet Thanksgiving days, with 7-10 people, and a hell of a lot of pie. I’m not kidding, either — 10-12 pies were not a surprise.
• Making cranberry bread the night before Thanksgiving, so it was just perfect for breakfast the next morning.

It’s that last one, “Making cranberry bread”, that I want to tell you about now.. or, at least, share the recipe.

I first made cranberry bread in Mrs. Ellison’s 3rd grade class — I was so proud, and it was very good. I remember bringing the bread home, and my father making a fuss over it — how good it was, how nice it looked, and impressed that * I * baked it. Well, me and 21 others, anyway.

Over the years, I always made cranberry bread at Thanksgiving – always the night before, for breakfast the next morning. For the first few years, I stuck with Mrs. Ellison’s recipe, but later I began trying other recipes, and other ways to make it. Some recipes with (dare I say it?!?), too many cranberries, some with not enough, some with no nuts (why bother?!), some with other fruits added.. and all were pretty good — can cranberry bread really be bad?

Then about 7 or 8 years ago, I started just playing with the all the different recipes.. some with buttermilk, some without.. some with 1/3 cup Oj, some with 2/3, some with more or less flour, more or less cranberries…….and on and on. I made about 7 or 8 batches, before I finally came up with the one below — This is my favorite version of cranberry bread — full of cranberries and nuts, with the sweet-tart taste of orange, and a dough that can stand up to all of it.

I don’t really know what the trick is -( I think it’s the oven temp), but I know that this version is the one people have always enjoyed. I usually make a double batch of it, freezing the second one for some mid-December treat.

I hope you enjoy cranberry bread, as I always have, and hope you enjoy this recipe.

Cranberry-Orange Pecan Bread

1/3 cup juice plus 1 tablespoon grated zest from an orange
2/3 cup buttermilk
6 tablespoons melted butter, lightly cooled
1 large beaten egg
2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
3 cups cranberries, chopped *See note!!
1 cup toasted pecans, chopped, *See note

Oven should be at 375 to start. Grease a regular sized bread pan.

Mix together the wet ingredients — this is a muffin method prep, not a yeast bread. Mix the juice, zest, buttermilk, butter and egg in a bowl. In another, larger bowl, mix together well the flour, sugar, salt, baking powder and soda. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry, and mix just until it comes together. It will be lumpy. It will not look like you mixed it enough — it is supposed to look that way!!! Over mix, and the gluten in the flour will just have way too much fun and make the dough tough. So just stop!! Now, add the cranberries and pecans, and fold these in gently, not over-mixing at all. Just fold until.. now!!

Spoon the batter in to the bread pan, making sure you get it evenly in all the corners.. just shake the pan a bit to evenly spread it out.

Place the pan in the 375F degree oven. After 20 minutes, reduce the heat to 350 and bake until golden brown.. about 45-50 minutes. Cool in the pan for about 10 minutes, and then on a rack for about 1 hour.

Notes:

I gave this recipe to a friend a few years ago, and she was quite disappointed. Turns out that she chopped cranberries and then measured them. The recipe says, “3 cups cranberries, chopped”, meaning measure 3 cups of whole cranberries, and /then/ chop them!!

To toast pecans, heat griddle or frying pan over medium heat. Add pecans, chopped coarse; toast, shaking pan frequently, until nuts are fragrant, 3 to 5 minutes. Be careful, though, as pecans (or any nut, really), will burn quickly.

This recipe doubles extremely well, and it freezes great, too. Once the bread is cooled completely — at least 3 hours, wrap it in parchment paper well, and then place in a ziplock bag, removing as much air as possible, and freeze for up to a month. To thaw, remove the bread from the bag and wrap in another layer of parchment paper (which will wick up the moisture as the bread freezes, so the bread doesn’t get soggy. Serve as usual.

Here is a recipe for Cranberry Orange Scones. This is one of those easy and simple recipes that came out of some book, and has been copied onto a recipe index card years ago. I made these tonight – it took all of 15 minutes to put these together, and now I’ve got breakfast for the next couple of days. I ended up with only 7 wrapped up for the week.. and you’ll find out what I did with the remaining one below ;)

Enjoy!

Cranberry Orange Scones

3 Cups flour
1/3 cup of sugar
2 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cups butter, cut up into small pieces
1 1/2 tablespoon of grated orange peel
3/4-1 cup dried cranberries
1 cup buttermilk

Mix flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and baking powder. Some recipes say to sift this, and yes, do that if you have a sifter or a fine mesh strainer. Otherwise, mix in the butter. I use a fork (or my fingers) to mix in the butter, until it is very crumbly.

Mix in the orange peel, cranberries and then add buttermilk, mixing only until it is wet. Batter will be clumpy.

On a floured surface, knead the dough. Don’t over do this — 3-4 turns is all that should be necessary. You can now either roll out the dough, and cut into rounds, or (the easy way), make the entire dough into a 1 inch round and cut it into 8 wedges.

Place on a baking sheet that is lightly greased (or is lined with parchment). Give a couple of inches between the scones.

Bake in a preheated 400 degree F oven for about 23-25 minutes, or until golden brown. Allow to cool slightly before you remove these from the baking sheet, or you will be forced to eat the crumbled up scones immediately, with a bit of cream poured over top ;)

Allow to cool, and then store for up to 5 days.

Scone Variations

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup Pecans, chopped

1/4 cup dried currants
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 cup dried apricots, diced
2 tablespoons sliced almonds

1/2 cup dried cherries
1/2 teaspoon almond extract

3/4 cup dried cranberries
1/2 teaspoon lemon zest
1/2 cup Walnuts, chopped

1/2 cup dried cranberries
1 tablespoon orange peel, zested
1/2 cup pecans, chopped

1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup walnuts, chopped