Garlic Cheddar Buns

MMMMMMMMmmmmmmm!!! That's just to indicate how good they taste!! As I said previously, I felt like I was cursed when it came to baking. Cooking? No problem... baking? Uh... yea, that was another story. But I think I may have broken the curse with a little help from my mom and a new container of yeast.

Our family reunion is fast approaching and my mom makes a killer spaghetti sauce (the recipe is in my archives, but if you click the work "spaghetti" above, you'll go there directly) and we decided it would be the best opening meal to the weekend. It wouldn't matter what time people got there, it could be ready to put on a plate with some Caesar salad and some garlic bread. But then I got to thinking and some garlic cheddar buns might be a nice answer to the traditional garlic bread. I tried to make them the other day and failed miserably, but found out that the yeast had gone bad, so we got some new yeast and I gave it another try.... SUCCESS!!!

Here is how I did it (by the way, this was my FIRST TIME EVER making homemade bread):

Ingredients:

4 1/3 cups of flour (I used all purpose)
2 tbsp salt
4 1/2 tsp yeast
1 cup shredded cheddar
2 1/2 cups warm water
1 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp powdered garlic
1 tbsp parsley flakes
1 tbsp dill
(I might try oregano instead of the dill next time)

The first thing you need to do is check that your yeast is active. So warm up your water to about 38 degrees Celsius or 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Stir in the sugar and then drop in your yeast after the sugar is all dissolved. The yeast will take 10 minutes to reach it's active state, but you will know that it is active once you see it bubble and rise into a foam on top of the water.

While you wait on the yeast, you can put all your dry ingredients (about half of the flour to start with and NONE of the cheddar) into a large bowl and mix well. Add the yeast mixture and continue to add the flour (you need to work it in with your hands now) until the dough is no longer sticky on your fingers. Now work the cheese into the dough, always folding the dough into the centre. Punch it down, form it into a ball and place it into a buttered, metal bowl or container. Place a tea towel over the top and pop it into your oven (you just need to warm the oven, then turn it off and leave the door open a crack). Pop that bowl in there and let it rise for about an hour. It should be double the size.

Once it's risen, remove it from the oven, and set your oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit and you can either form buns (I made 45 little buns) or 2 loaves. Put it on greased pans and then pop it in your hot oven. If you are making buns, they should be ready in 15-20 minutes (they sound hollow when you tap the tops) and a loaf of bread should be ready in 30-40 minutes.

When they are done, brush them with a little unsalted butter. These are a little on the salty side, so you might want to reduce the salt or use a less salty cheese.
HAPPY EATING!!

Case of the Cursed Baker

That's what I've felt like for the last year... a cursed baker. I can cook and cook well! You can throw just about anything at me in the kitchen and ask me to make something tasty and I can do it, but for the last year, I've felt like I couldn't bake a thing. I didn't bake too much the year before it (when you have a roommate like I did, who is clearly gifted in baking, there was just no need) and so at first I thought I was out of practice. Then I thought it was because I struggled to read and translate the Turkish instructions (which was hard but, with the help of a dictionary and Google Translate, not impossible). Then I thought it was the elevation of the city of Ankara (I wasn't used to baking at high elevations and people said it could be problematic). Then I thought it was the experimentation with the gluten-free flour (which was part of the problem for me... I need to figure that stuff out!!). But finally, I began to think that these things were just excuses and it was ME... I couldn't bake. I'd lost the baking groove (a terrible thing to lose, let me tell you). This was further confirmed here in Canada a few days ago when I tried to make homemade, yummy garlic/cheddar buns and cinnamon rolls. I followed the recipe and the instructions but the dough didn't rise and all I got were some amazing smelling hockey pucks. It put PMSing me over the edge and I nearly lost my mind. That is, until my mom and dad discussed the yeast and figured out that it was no longer active.... so, I may or may not still be a cursed baker, but I know that the last baking mishap was NOT my fault. I will try both recipes again tomorrow and hopefully have some gorgeous pictures of yummy treats to show you. Stay tuned and HAPPY EATING!!

Another Great Summer Salad

I love a good pasta salad in the summer. Typically it involves mayo as part of the dressing and in an effort to do something different and lighter, I hit the kitchen tonight after a great day by the pool to make a summer pasta salad.

Here is what I did:

I boiled some lightly oiled and salted water and then cooked some pasta (I used elbow macaroni for it this time, but really just about ANYTHING would work great). When the pasta was nearly done, I tossed in about a cup of frozen shrimp to cook with the pasta in it's last minutes.

While the pasta was cooking, I chopped up a cucumber and several cherry tomatoes (these I just cut into halves). I then doused them with a little bit of olive oil and a spice mixture that I get in Turkey called Olive Sauce (basically it consists of oregano, crushed red chillies, salt and a touch of sumac). I also sprinkled on some dried garlic spice and a wee bit of salt. Just before I drained and rinsed the pasta and shrimp, I decided that there was something lacking from the veggie mixture and I added 1 tbsp of caper berries in vinegar and the juice of half a lemon.

I drained and rinsed the pasta and shrimp in cold water to remove excess oil and to cool them before adding them to veggie mixture. Then I tossed them altogether for a wonderfully spicy and refreshing salad!!

HAPPY EATING!

Super Summer Salad

I love a good salad (in fact, I eat it just about everyday for lunch... topped with a boiled egg and some Turkish yogurt if I can get it)... but sometimes they can get boring. Today, I decided to play around with the idea of a salad and to make it a little more interesting.

On top of lettuce (I had a red one), I put cucumber slices and halved cherry tomatoes. Then I threw on some half wedges of grapefruit and some halved, hard boiled quail eggs (don't worry, they taste just like regular eggs, just cuter). And over it all I poured warm curried shrimp (peeled and cleaned shrimp that was sauteed in butter, curry powder, grapefruit juices, sumac, garlic and cumin). YUMMY!! And it was pretty with all the colour contrasts too... eating isn't just about pleasing your tongue, right?



Happy Eating!

Kumpir

In Turkey, Kumpir is a baked potato, but like nothing you have EVER seen before. Trust me when I say it blows ALL other baked potatoes out the window. It's cheap to get here and is SO good!! What they do that makes it better is that the potato is cooked so that the inside is soft and the outside is crispy (I don't know who they get it to work exactly like that) and then they crack it open and MASH the insides with butter and cheese (sounds wrong, but trust me on this one... it's SO RIGHT!!!) until it's a gooey, mashy mix. Then they let you choose what you want to top it with (everything from veggies to BBQ chicken are available). It's WONDERFUL! I wish there were proper Kumpir places everywhere I went... this could be my new crack food (you know, the food that's like a drug to you).

Sandwich Gone Wrong

A while back, I went to Eskişehir with some friends. We were there to watch a basketball game and to just have some fun. Fun was had for sure... but I just have to share a food story. We were recommended to a place for dinner and we went. Place was extremely busy and things were flying off the menu, so I thought I'd stick with something easy and that would be simple to make with all the rush: a clubhouse sandwich. Now, I don't know about you, but when I think of a club, I think of bacon (I knew I wasn't going to get bacon on it... this is a muslim country afterall), turkey, lettuce, tomatoes, mayo etc with 3 slices of bread total... well, this is what they thought it was:


UH?!?!?! Needless to say, I took it apart and ate what I thought was edible which wasn't much. Beware when ordering what you think is simple!

Happy Eating!!

Scrumdilicious Banana Bread

So I had some ripe (overly so) bananas in my fridge (here in Turkey it's the only way I can keep them for longer than a day or two it seems) and I wanted to make some banana bread. I haven't had a lot of luck with cakes and breads here and generally just get pissed off about the whole thing. But... I thought, why not give it one more try. So here is the recipe that I found online:

4 ripe, mashed bananas
1/3 cup melted butter
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking soda
dash of salt
1 1/2 cups flour

I threw in a crushed up bar of dark chocolate just for fun and a little extra flour because it seemed a little too moist when I was mixing it and that always turns into cake/bread gone to trash here.

And guess what?! IT TURNED OUT GREAT!!!!!


Happy Eating!!