Guest Post: Baking Newbie

This is a suuuuuper crazy time of year for me. Think laughing/crying/exhaustion with a never-ending to-do list. I love my job…it just that I have the whole  year’s worth of stress compacted into only a few months. I love that folks wanted to help me with guest posts. Today I have Amy of Wicked Good Travel. You’ve met Amy before, here, and she was here, and I was on her blog here.

Baking and I are not friends. I was always more than happy to reap the benefits of baking that others did, but I wanted no part of hangin’ out with baking on my own. Cooking and I are serious BFFs though. We get along like a house on fire…is that a bad metaphor for cooking? Anyway, whenever baking and I got together it ended in tears, shouting, and hopping up and down in anger. This came along with a huge mess that looked like I’d murdered a platter of cupcakes and then tried to cover up my sins with a bag of flour. Seriously. It never went well.

But lately as I’ve gotten increasingly better and more confident at cooking I felt like I needed a challenge. It started with homemade pasta. The first batch of pasta dough failed miserably, but then I watched a video and tried again and it worked! Then recently I wanted to make biscuits and gravy, but I didn’t have any pre-made biscuits I could pop in the oven, and I thought ‘well, if I’m really a food blogger, then I should be up for the challenge of making stuff from scratch as much as possible.’ So, I decided to try my hand at homemade biscuits. It all was going so well, until I failed to read the ingredients that said “self-rising flour” and used “all-purpose flour” instead, without adding any baking powder or baking soda. You might think at that point I would throw in the towel. But, that simple mistake suddenly flipped the switch in my brain, and seeing what happened to the biscuits minus that ingredient made it easier to understand why I needed to follow baking instructions more carefully.

I know, it all sounds so obvious. And honestly, I did always know why following measurements and not swapping out ingredients on a whim while baking was important. But alas, I’m a creative, passionate type and I didn’t want to deal with that rigidity as I saw it. I wanted to be free to throw this in and add a pinch of that, or totally mix it up or sideways and get downright crazy! Since I couldn’t do that with baking, despite my valiant efforts, I shunned the activity.

Yet, with this recent hiccup regarding the biscuits I found myself getting right back on the horse and the following weekend I made them again. And they came out perfectly. Suddenly, I had found that freedom I always thought was nonexistent with baking. I also found that yes, I could bake. I just had to pay attention as a beginner. Now, I was free to rule the world of baking should I wish! So, with that in mind, I decided to get seriously crazy. I decided… to make scones.

Blackberry Scones

modified from Baking Bites

Ingredients:

2 cups all purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/3 cup butter, chilled
3/4 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup blackberries, fresh or frozen (I used frozen, actually kneads a bit better into the dough)
1 tbsp coarse sugar, for topping (I didn’t have any so I did without)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Cut butter into 6-8 chunks and add to flour mixture, tossing to coat. Using your fingertips, rub the butter into the flour until mixture is sandy and butter is well distributed, with no pieces larger than a big pea.
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Combine milk and vanilla extract and pout into flour mixture. Stir until dough comes together.
guest_scone_590_390Add blackberries and gently knead into the dough. It is ok if some berries get slightly squished.
guest_scone_berries_590_390 Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface, and flatten dough into a disc about 3/4-inch thick.
Use a knife to divide disc into six triangles. Place scones on prepared baking sheet.
Sprinkle generously with coarse sugar.
Bake for 20 minutes, until scones are golden brown.
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Again, everything seemed to be going so well, so I snapped photos away ready to blog my triumph. But as the dough came together and I had to roll it out, all seemed lost. It was so sticky and seemed too wet – I couldn’t cut the dough as perfectly as I had expected so I cut rough triangles and gingerly put them on the baking sheet. Hence the lack of photos of the dough. Imagine my surprise when I pulled them out of the oven as the timer bell went off, and cut a piece off with some serious trepidation, and I realized I had made a bonafide scone. They tasted so amazing!! I couldn’t believe it. I’ve already started my next baking venture- I’m going to make oatcakes. The batter is sitting on my kitchen counter as I type, patiently waiting to be rolled out tomorrow, per instructions.

Well, thanks so much to Emily for allowing me a little space on her corner of the Interweb to share my success with you all! I encourage you to give the recipe for Blackberry Scones a go, which can easily become Raspberry Scones, or Blueberry Scones, or Walnut Scones…all I know is we’re gonna be bakin’ away in this house going forward. And I have learned that there’s enough room in my heart and my skills to be BFFs with both cooking and baking.
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Cheers!
Amy

Interested in being a guest blogger? Email emily@thethreebiterule.com for more details!

Biscuits and Gravy…it’s not just for Breakfast

Sometimes I’m full of dinner ideas and others I’m racking my brain. I don’t know how I came up with biscuits and gravy but I was feeling especially southern. This is more of a what-I-ate rather than a recipe but I wanted to share my biscuit success!
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Some of my thought was I haaaaad to prove it to myself that I could make a biscuit. I tried to make some that looked simple enough for thanksgiving that were a huge flop.

I made simple bisquick biscuits and they came out great! I used a juice glass to cut them. I brushed the tops with butter after cooking for a few minutes. They were light, fluffy, and absorbent.
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I crumbled 2 sausage links and made a simple creamy gravy. The sausage and gravy topped biscuits.
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I felt like we needed something else so I baked apple slices with some brown sugar, maple syrup, and oatmeal.
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Broccoli and Cheddar Soup in Breadbowls

I’ve been meal planning lately and it’s working out great. I’ll go into further detail later, but I think it’s helping me a bit more well rounded. Mr. J might have been a little bit nervous when I popped a soup onto the weekly list but we LOVED this.
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I wasn’t even going to blog this but just after I got going I figured it was worthy! My roux was perfect. That doesn’t happen all the time. I’ve made a few mac & cheeses that haven’t been ideal because my roux ratios were off. This time it was right on and it made the soup velvety and delicious.

Ingredients:

¼ cup flour
¼ cup butter
1½ cup half and half cream
2 cups chicken stock
2 cups broccoli florets
1 ½ cups shredded cheddar (I used a mix of sharp and American)

Directions:

Melt butter and whisk in flour. Let it cook for about 5 minutes on medium low until golden and sticky.
Add in cream and chicken stock, stirring until well incorporated. Add broccoli and cook covered for 15 minutes.
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Slowly add cheese and stir until melted.
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Cook for 15 minutes on low.

I served this soup in bread bowls by just baking lumps of pizza dough and scooping out the middle after the outside was fully cooked. It took about 30 minutes at 375-degrees to cook far enough in. The bread bowls were about baseball size each or a quarter of the dough.
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It was so thick and could easily be thinned out with more milk, water, or chicken stock. We really liked how creamy it was and the thickness was a good thing to us. I owe all the credit to the roux. I normally don’t measure but the equal parts worked magically.

Look at how interested the pup is. Windsor hangs out by the microwave that is set into the island. He was interested in the chicken stock warming up.
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This literally could have been fondue it was that thick and melty.  I think it would have liked it as a dip with crusty bread or to fill baked potato skins.

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Meatball Subs on Garlic Bread

This doesn’t seem like it really warrants a recipe, but this hit the spot and makes all other meatball subs look sad.The key was the garlic bread. It was a pretty good “water-proofer” to keep the roll from getting too soggy too!
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Ingredients:

2 crusty rolls
7 meatballs
4 slices of provolone cheese
2 cups tomato sauce
3 tbs butter
2 tbs garlic, chopped
2 tbs grated Parmesan cheese

Directions:

Prep the rolls as you would garlic bread (I spread the butter on them, then garlic, truffle oil, Parmesan, kosher salt, and garlic powder)
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Bake for 5 minutes at 400-degrees.
Cut meatballs into quarter chunks and warm with sauce while bread is toasting.
Remove the rolls and top each one with 1 slice of provolone.
Add sauce, meatball chunks, and more sauce, then top with remaining cheese.
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Bake 5 minutes at 400-degrees until melted.
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I loved how garlicky it was and the truffle oil was a great addition. I cut the meatballs to make it more manageable but if they were smaller I might not have.

I think the important thing to remember to keep these as a quick kitchen-to-table dinner is that if everything is warm, they don’t need to cook long. The meatballs and sauce were both warm so all that was happening in the oven was the cheese melting.

Wine Cork Craft

I think I’ve been saving wine corks for what seems like forever. It’s not that I don’t drink enough wine, it is moreso that some of my favorite wines have rubber corks which are good for nothing. I did learn in Sonoma that the fake wanna-be corks, or screwtop bottles don’t indicate the quality of the wine at all.
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I started one cork craft but ran out of corks and had to table it until I had some more. For Christmas my brother and sister in law gave me a wine cork tray-kit I’d been eyeing. To top it off, my mother-in-law gave me a BAG of corks. It was perfect I could get right to it!
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The kit suggested that I map out my pattern before gluing. Good point.
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I liked this every-other pattern. I had to trim a few but they cut surprisingly easily. I loved that I could get a few of my super special ones into good parts of the pattern. We went to a winey in Spain on the honeymoon so that cork is in there, and my bachelorette party started at a local winery so that cork is there.
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I’m scooting off to Florida for the weekend just kidding! I’m dropping by for about 18-hours for Ms. M’s wedding and I’ll be remotely drinking to Mrs. A’s birthday! Work is too crazy to be gone but I’m excited for some some celebrating with my hometown ladies! All of that will keep me busy and help to deal with the fact that once again, I cannot attend the Bacon & Beer Festival