Olive Bread

When things get hectic, good bread is a fine thing to have on hand.  You can serve it as toast alongside a bowl of soup or some scrambled eggs, you can throw together a quick and tasty sandwich, or you can assemble the makings of a savoury bread pudding and pop it in the fridge, ready to go into the oven when you get home from work, or in the morning if you have guests for breakfast or brunch. Olive bread works well for all these things.

I usually bake this bread in a rectangular loaf pan because if I'm using it to make sandwiches that shape ensures that all the slices will be similar in size and shape.  Sometimes, though, I divide the dough into three or four portions and use it to make pizza crust, or I'll form it into a round if I want to make muffaletta or some other stuffed loaf. The baking times will, of course, vary depending upon the size and shape of the bread.

To make this bread you'll need:

• 2 cups warm water, slightly above body temperature but not exceedin 110F
• 2 Tablespoons sugar
• 4-1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 6 -1/2 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 Tablespoons Greek Seasoning (I use this recipe, shared on AllRecipes by Margaret Havenar)
• 2 Tablespoons of finely diced sun-dried tomatoes 
• 1 cup sliced green olives
• 1 cup sliced black olives

Stir the sugar into the warm water until dissolved. Sprinkle the yeast over the water and let it rest until the yeast has dissolved and started to foam up a bit.  (This usually takes about 10 minutes in my kitchen.)

Add the olive oil and 3 cups of flour, mixing them until combined.

Add in the salt, Greek seasoning, sun-dried tomatoes, olives, and the remaining 3-1/2 cups of flour. Continuing mixing until a firm dough forms. 

If you're mixing it in your stand mixer, using a dough hook, set the mixer on low speed and continue mixing for 5 to 10 minutes, until the dough is elastic and springs back when you poke it lightly with your finger.

If you're mixing it by hand, knead it in the bowl so you don't have to add extra flour, working it for about 10 minutes until the dough is elastic and springs back when you poke it lightly with your finger.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured board or onto a sheet of waxed paper or parchment. Wash and dry the mixing bowl, then lightly oil the inside of the bowl.  Return the dough to the bowl, turning it so it's lightly oiled all over, then cover the dough with a sheet of waxed paper or a slightly damp cloth.

Let the dough stand until doubled in size.  (My home tends to be a bit chilly at this time of year - around 65F most days - so the dough can take up to 2 hours for the dough to rise. If your space is warmer the dough will double in size more quickly.) While the dough is rising, butter or oil two loaf pans.

When the dough has doubled in size, punch the dough down, knead it a few times, then divide it in half and form each half into a loaf.  Place the formed loaves into the prepared pans and let them rise again until doubled in size. 

When the loaves have risen brush the tops with olive oil. Bake them on the middle rack of a 375F oven for about 45 minutes, rotating them at the 25 minute point.

When the bread is done it'll be golden brown in colour.  If, when you turn a loaf out of the pan and tap on the bottom crust, it sounds hollow you'll know it's cooked through.  If it doesn't have that hollow sound put it back in the pan and return it to the oven. Turn the oven off and allow the bread to bake a bit longer in the residual heat.

Turn the baked loaves out onto wire racks to cool.  Leave them for at least 30 minutes before slicing the bread.

Seriously, you need to make this.  It's SO good!

Cranberry Apple Pie

 

I 💓 cranberries! So much so that I keep them in my freezer year 'round. At Christmas-time, they hold special appeal to me because their tart, acidic flavour provides a pleasant counterpoint to the richness and sweetness of so many holiday treats.

It was just that tartness that inspired me to add cranberry apple pie to my Christmas menu. A thin slice of pie makes a fine ending to a Christmas night feast. A not-so-thin slice of pie paired with a cup of coffee is my very favourite Boxing Day breakfast.

It took me a few tries to get this recipe to turn out like I wanted. The ingredients are deceptively simple but the amount of moisture in the fruit can vary a lot. The first time I made it there was so much liquid from the fruit that it dissolved the bottom crust of the pie entirely.  It still tasted good, but it wasn't at all the result I wanted.

Because it was my intention to have a filling that remained set when the pie was both hot and cold, I ended up using quick-cooking tapioca (Minit Tapioca) to thicken it. It sets up more firmly than cornstarch or flour and doesn't have the caviar-like texture of regular tapioca. 

I usually put the fruit in my pie shells uncooked before baking but - because it allows me to adjust the amount of tapioca later if needed - I cook the filling ahead of time for this one.  If the filling doesn't set up firmly once it's cooled, I can stir in some more tapioca before putting it in the crust.

To make a 9-inch pie, you'll need:

• Pastry for a 2-crust, deep dish pie. You can find my recipe here.
• 4 cups of cranberries
• 4 cups of apple that's been cut wedges, then into pieces a little larger than the cranberries
• 1 cup of sugar
• 3 Tablespoons quick cooking tapioca (plus more if needed later)
• A little bit of milk for brushing on the crust
• Additional sugar for sprinkling over the crust

To prepare the filling: 

Combine the cranberries, apples, sugar, and tapioca in a non-reactive pan. Stir them together and let them sit for a while, until the sugar draws out some of the juice from the fruit.

Once there's a little juice in the bottom of the pan, cook the filling over low heat, stirring it now and then, until it boils and thickens.  

Remove the pan from the heat and allow the filling to cool to room temperature.  You can refrigerate it at this point if you want to, and finish the pie the next day.

To assemble the pie: 

Divide the pastry dough in half.  Return half of it to the fridge. Gently form the other half into a thick disk and place it onto a sheet of waxed paper at least 12 inches square. Cover the dough with another sheet of paper and, working from the center outwards towards the edge, roll the pastry to an even thickness,large enough to reach or exceed the width of the waxed paper.

Gently loosen the top sheet of waxed paper from the dough. Put the loosened paper back over the pastry, flip the rolled dough over, and gently remove the other (now top) sheet of waxed paper.  

Transfer the pastry to a deep dish 9-inch pie plate.  (I use the waxed paper to help me lift the pastry without breaking it.) Gently press the pastry into shape until it conforms to the shape of the pie plate.

If the pastry tears, gently pull off a piece from an outside edge where it overhangs the side of the pie plate. Use your fingertip to apply a little bit of water around the edges of the tear and then place the pulled pastry piece on top, pressing gently to bind it to the crust. 

Trim the pastry neatly around the top edge of the pie plate.

Cover the pastry with a sheet of aluminum foil, pressing it into place, to conform to the contour of the pie shell.  Pour a layer of pastry weights or dried beans into the foil.

Bake the pastry in the pie plate at 425F for 10 minutes, with the foil and pie weights in place.  Remove the pie weights and foil liner, then bake it for 3 or 4 minutes more. Let it cool to room temperature.

While the bottom crust is cooling, roll out the top crust between sheets of waxed paper as instructed above.

Spoon the cooked pie filling into the cooled bottom crust. Cover it with the top crust.

Crimp the edge of the top crust or press it in place with the tines of a fork. Brush the top crust with milk, sprinkle sugar over the milk, and cut a vent into the uncooked pastry.  (I like to cut the vent in a Christmas tree shape or in the shape of a heart.)

Return the pie to the 425F oven, bake it for 10 minutes, then reduce the heat to 350F and bake it for about an hour more.  

The pastry should be lightly browned.  If the edges are getting too dark, remove the pie from the oven, cover the edges with foil, then return it to the oven for the remainder of the cooking time.

Serve the pie either warm or at room temperature. I like mine just as it is, plain and slightly tart tasting, but if you want to sweeten it up a bit you can serve it with iced cream or whipped cream. 

Tiny Mincemeat Turnovers

Many years ago, wanting to serve mincemeat as one flavour among many on a Christmas dessert table, I decided to make tiny turnovers. They needed to be small enough to be one of several treats on a sampler plate. The turnovers, which offered a small portion of mincemeat wrapped in flaky pastry, with granulated sugar on top to provide a little extra sweetness and crunch, were a big hit. They weren't the prettiest thing on the table but proportion of mincemeat to pastry was just right.  I still get requests for them every year and they remain a Christmas baking staple at my house.

Every good turnover begins with pastry.  When you buy a turnover at a bakery it will most likely be made with puff pastry but since my turnovers were going to be tiny, I thought that puff pastry's volume would overwhelm the filling.  I opted instead to make a simple lard pastry; the one I've used to make countless pies over the years. 

I'm giving you the quantities needed to make enough pastry for a single pie crust or about a dozen tiny turnovers.  The recipe is easily doubled.  I find, though, that if you want to make more than double this recipe, it's best to make a second batch. I can't explain why this is, but experience has taught me not to question good results.

To make the pastry, you'll need:

• 1 cup flour
• 3/8 teaspoon of salt 
• 1/2  cup lard. well chilled
• 2 Tablespoons very cold water
• 1 egg white + 1/2 teaspoon of cold water in a separate small bowl
• granulated white sugar

Stir the flour and salt together until well combined.  Cut the lard into the flour.  I tend to leave the lard in fairly large pieces—about the size of a kidney bean—because it’s always better to leave it too large than to break it down too small.  A light hand will result in a flakier crust.

Stir the water into the flour and lard mixture just until the ingredients are moistened and start to hold together.  Gently form the dough into a rough ball.

Wrap the pastry in plastic wrap, or put it in a small enough container that there's not a lot of airspace around it, then seal the container with a lid. Refrigerate the dough for at least an hour. (I usually make the pastry one day and then roll it out the next.)

After the pastry has rested in the fridge, return it to the counter and allow it to warm for a few minutes.

Place the dough on a piece of waxed paper at least 12 inches square.  Gently press it into a thick disk and cover it with a second piece of waxed paper.  

Rolling out from the center towards the edges and rotating a quarter turn after each roll, roll the pastry until it's a uniform thickness and large enough to have reached, and perhaps slightly exceeded, the factory cut edges of the waxed paper.  

Gently remove the top sheet of waxed paper. If you're going to be using the scraps to roll the pastry out a second time, set the paper aside.

Use a round cookie cutter to cut rounds of pastry, cutting them as closely together as you can. (I use a 3-inch diameter biscuit cutter.) You should dip the cookie cutter in flour before cutting the dough, and again whenever the pastry starts to stick to it. 

Gently remove the pastry from around the rounds you've cut, leaving only the rounds on the waxed paper.  Lightly press the pieces of pastry you've removed together, using only as much pressure as is required to get the pieces to stick to one another. If you end up with a smooth ball of dough, you've pressed too much.  Set this pastry aside.

Spoon a scant teaspoon-full of mincemeat into the center of each cut round of pastry.  

Using a brush or your fingertip, apply water around the outside edge of each round before folding it in half, making a sort of half moon shape. Gently press the edges together to seal them.

Transfer the turnovers to a parchment lined baking sheet. Discard the bottom sheet of waxed paper.

Use a fork to beat the egg white and water together until it's frothy, then brush a little of the egg white mixture over the top of each turnover. Sprinkle some sugar over the egg white. You don't want a thick layer of sugar but you do want most of the upper surface of the turnovers to be lightly covered with it.

Place the scraps of pastry you removed from the first rolling onto a fresh sheet of waxed paper.  Cover the pastry with the top sheet of waxed paper you set aside and repeat the rolling, cutting, filling, and topping process again.

When you've made as many turnovers as you need, place them in a 400F oven and immediately turn the oven down to 350F.  Let them bake until they're lightly browned. I can't tell you exactly how long that'll take because it will depend upon the size of turnovers you've made and the quantity of mincemeat you've filled them with. I find that mine take about 30 minutes to bake.

I store my tiny turnovers in the same way I would store cookies: layered in a tin with a round of wax paper between each layer. They can be frozen, but thawing them will soften the sugar on the outside.  You may want to return them to the oven for just long enough to allow them to re-crisp.

Orange and Mincemeat Muffins

Eep!  It's December already!  

No matter how many early Christmas posts I share December always catches me by surprise. Not that I don't love it, I do. I enjoy the lights, the music, Christmas movies, Christmas cards, time spent with friends, and - of course - the food. I'm just never entirely ready for it all, you know? Maybe it's because I'm usually working really hard at this time of year...Or maybe I'm just easily distracted.  lol!

One thing I did manage to get done ahead of time this year was some cooking. I've prepared a whole bunch of recipes as my Christmas gift for you. I'll be sharing one every weekday (Monday through Friday) from now until November 24.  This is the first one. 😊

I enjoy a good muffin. A muffin and a cup of coffee or tea ranks high on my list of small indulgences.  In fact, I could be considered the president of the muffin fan club. lol!

This orange and mincemeat muffin is all good things to me.  Because, muffins. And, Christmas flavours. And, comfort food. Yay! 

Here's the recipe:

• 1-1/2 cups flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 egg
• 1/2 to 3/4 cup sugar (Adjust this to taste according to the sweetness of the mincemeat you're using. I tend to prefer the smaller amount.)
• 1/3 cup oil
• 1 cup mincemeat
• The zest from one large navel orange
• The juice from the orange together with enough milk to make 1/2 cup of liquid

Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt in a small bowl and stir them gently with a whisk or fork.

Put the egg, sugar, oil, mincemeat, and orange zest into a large bowl. Stir until well combined.

Add the flour mixture to the wet mixture, along with the orange juice/milk mixture. Stir them together just until combined. The batter should be quite thick and slightly lumpy. It's okay if a little bit of flour is still showing here and there.

Spoon the batter into a prepared muffin pan (either greased or lined with baking cups), filling each cup about 3/4 full.

Bake the muffins in a 350F oven for about 25 minutes or until the tops spring back when lightly pressed with a finger.

Let the muffins cool in the pan for a few minutes, then transfer them to a rack. They're good either warm of cold. 

Orange and mincemeat muffins are delicious on their own, or with butter and marmalade. You could even serve them instead of scones at afternoon tea, or for dessert, with marmalade or lemon curd and a generous dollop of whipped cream.

Enjoy!

Caveman Candles

Are you looking for something to make with the kids during the Christmas holiday? This is one of my favourite winter-time craft projects.

I learned to make these candles in Girl Guides. It was a simple enough project that it could be completed within the course of a single meeting and still have time left over to do other stuff, but to 10-year-old me it was pure magic. 

I've been making them ever since, and that's a LONG time!

Back in the day, we began our project by sprinkling glitter over the inside of the candle mold, and we made the candle with Parowax; a petroleum product. Parowax has a low melting and setting point and it's pure white, giving the candles the appearance of melting ice. These days I leave out the glitter (it's not biodegradeable) and I use beeswax instead of Parowax. The finished candles aren't as sparkly or pretty looking as the Parowax ones were but they sure smell wonderful, scenting the air with honey as they burn. 

The colour of the beeswax and the holes that honeycomb the finished candles reminded my husband of Tafoni, a coastal sandstone formation. Tafoni stone is intricately carved by the ocean into organic shapes with round or hexagonal indentations. (You should Google it and look at the photos. It's really cool.) With stone in mind, he dubbed these "Caveman Candles." The name stuck.

The supplies for this project are really basic.  You'll need:

• beeswax and a tin to melt it in
• a saucepan
• a milk carton 
• a pencil 
• a candle wick
• scissors
• ice cubes

Ordinarily, I use braided cotton candlewick that comes in a coil. Unfortunately candlemaking supplies are really hard to come by here right now.  I did manage to find wax coated wicks with the little metal tabs on the bottom. They worked.

Begin by melting the wax. Put the wax in the tin and put the tin in a saucepan with some water.  Heat the water to a simmer and keep the tin in the water until the wax melts.

I used a pair of pliers to make a spout on the tin before putting the wax in. It's totally optional but my hands are very shaky so the spout makes pouring much less messy.

While the wax is melting, cut the top off the milk carton so you have a rectangular container with roughly level edges all around.  

Wind the wick around the pencil and then use the pencil to suspend the wick at mid-point in the carton.

Carefully fill the carton with ice cubes, being careful not to displace the wick. The ice cylinders with hollow middles that you buy in a bag from a freezer at the grocery store work best for this project but, really, any ice cubes will do. The effect will vary according to the shape of the ice cubes you use.. 

I don't have an icemaker and my freezer is too small to accommodate a bag of ice so I had to improvise. When the wax was melted, I left it in the hot water to keep it liquid while I ran to the MacDonald's on the corner and got a cup full of ice. MacDonald's used to use those hollow ice cylinders, but no more.  Now they use small flat chips of ice. They leave smaller holes in the wax so the finished candle is a little different but still not awful.

Pour the melted wax over the ice until the carton is almost full. The wax will begin to set up almost immediately and should harden completely within an hour.  

When the wax has hardened, unwind the wick from the pencil and cut away the milk carton. There will be water inside from the melted ice so it's probably best to do this step over a sink. 

Once the candle is unmolded a put it on a rack in the sink to dry. 

Once all the water has drained out and the candle has dried, it's ready to use. When you light it and let it burn down so the flame sinks below the top of the candle, the light will carry through the holes in the wax, making a soft and varied light.  Kids love that.  

Happy crafting!  If you make some of these candles over the holidays, I'd love to see them. You're welcome to share photos of your projects on my Facebook page.

My Big Fat November Grocery Shop

 

Every year, around the middle of November, there comes a day when herd mentality seems to kick in and the holiday shopping season begins. Store parking lots fill up, road traffic increases, and shoppers are less genial. When that day comes, I make a point of going to the grocery store one day soon after and doing a big, early morning shop. I stock up on enough food that, other than buying milk or eggs, I don't have to darken the door of a store again until the new year.

This year, that beginning-of-holiday- shopping feeling happened last Saturday and I did my big shop on Tuesday. The storm that happened in the days between, and the infrastructure damage that resulted from it, made it feel more urgent but I'm not a panic buyer so I stuck to my tried and true shopping plan, polished over years of practice.

It's always been my habit to keep a well stocked pantry with enough dry goods and non-perishable food to feed me for at least two weeks. In the normal course of things, when I use something from my pantry I add it to my grocery list and replace it the next time I go to the store. There have been times in my life, though - when I haven't had money for groceries or when I've been unable to leave home because of illness or weather - when I've eaten from my pantry until the shelves were bare.  Those were the times it stood m in good stead. I was very grateful to have that food on hand. The meals might've gotten boring but I was able to eat nutritious meals despite the challenges I was facing.When times got better again, I worked to restock my pantry, even if I had to do it bit by tiny bit.

Which brings me back to this year's pre-Christmas shop. My pantry was already in pretty good nick but I eat a lot of vegetables and knew I'd need more on hand to get through December without shopping. I bought veggies chosen for their long shelf life; mostly cole crops (cabbage, both red and green, and Brussels sprouts) and root vegetables (onions, carrots, beets, rutabaga, potatoes, and parsnips). I supplemented my fresh veggies with canned, which I'll use once the fresh veggies are gone.

I do plan to do some holiday baking, not nearly on the scale I have in past years, but some. I was low on flour and sugar so I bought those too, and enough butter for both the baking and for day to day use.

My average monthly grocery expenditure over the past 6 months has been $156/month. So far this month I've spent $279. That's a big jump but it'll be offset by spending almost nothing at all for the rest of the month and all of December.

Now I'm reading posts about panic buying like we saw at the beginning of the pandemic. **sigh** Some people never learn. That kind of behaviour is awfully selfish.

I guess some people - those who don't know me - might interpret my big November shop as hoarding but ky response to that is a big fat "nope!"  If you keep your pantry well stocked, there's no need for panic buying. My pre-holiday shop is a component of good planning and it may serve me even more well than usual in the coming weeks.

For those who are interested, here's a list of the dry goods, non- perishables, and household goods I regularly keep on hand in at least a two week supply:

• all purpose flour
• bread flour
• sugar, both white and brown
• molasses
• honey
• yeast
• baking powder
• baking soda
• cornstarch
• herbs and spices
• salt
• canola oil
• extra virgin olive oil
• vinegar (white, cider, and red wine)
• raisins
• dried apricots
• dried cranberries
• dates
• prunes
• pot barley (whole grain barley)
• a variety of rices (white, brown, red, purple, and black)
• cornmeal
• oatmeal
• dried beans (navy, garbanzo, pinto, lima, and black)
• lentils (red, green, black)
• mung beans for sprouting
• radish seeds for sprouting
• sunflower seeds for planting so I can use the shoots
• peas for planting so I can use the shoots
• walnuts
• cashews
• raw, shelled sunflower seeds
• assorted pastas
• cocoa powder
• canned vegetables (beets, corn, green beans, whole tomatoes, crushed tomatoes)
• canned convenience foods (soup, chili style beans, sauerkraut)
• canned fruit (peach slices, applesauce, crushed pineapple)
• evaporated milk
• coffee, tea, and herbal teas
• toilet paper
• laundry soap
• dish soap
• basic toiletries

I'm interested to hear what you keep on hand.  Are there things on my list that you'd never use? Do you have items you'd like to add? Please stop by my Facebook page to leave a comment.  I learn so much from you guys! Your imput is always welcome.

Winning at Dinner

I discovered years ago that sitting down and making a weekly or monthly meal plan doesn't work for me.  I end up buying too much food and then throwing a lot of it away because I don't use it up before it spoils. What does work for me is to make using leftovers into a game. I make a meal with extra portions of the main ingredients and then challenge myself to see how many new dishes I can make from the leftovers in the days that follow.  I call it Winning At Dinner.

I've been posting about Winning At Dinner in my personal feed for a while now and, every time I do that, someone comments that I should be teaching others how to do it. So...Here I am, sharing the idea. 

My thought is that I'll post my week's best series of meals on my Facebook page each Friday and challenge you to share yours in the comments. I'll share the post again each weekday and, when it's time to post the next Winning at Dinner, the person whose comment has garnered the most likes over the course of the week will be announced as winner. There won't be prizes but the bragging rights will be huge.  😉

Here's my Winning at Dinner series for the week:

Day 1: A sheet pan meal of bone-in chicken thighs, cubed acorn squash, and beets, all simply seasoned with salt and coarsely ground black pepper, served with brown rice as a side dish.

Day 2:  A stir fry of onion, carrots, and cabbage in a sauce made from homemade vegetable stock flavoured with a little garlic black bean paste. Once the veggies were tender-crisp I stirred in the meat from one of the chicken thighs, and some canned green beans.  I thickened the sauce with cornstarch, then I served the stir fry over some of the rice from the previous night, reheated in the microwave.

Day 3:  I needed a change from chicken so I had macaroni and tomatoes, with a celery salad.

Day 4: Poulterer's pie: I like a crust on the bottom of my meat pies so I made the pastry from my quiche recipe and used it to form two individual pies in extra large muffin cups. I par-baked the crusts then filled each pie with the meat from a chicken thigh, diced roasted squash and beets, sauteed onion, and the last of the canned green beans, in chicken gravy. (I used a packaged mix.) To encourage the top to brown nicely as the pies baked, I topped each pie with mashed potato brushed with a little melted butter. I had one pie for supper, with coleslaw on the side, and put the second pie in the freezer for another day.

Bonus: I made a soup from homemade vegetable stock, the leftover gravy from the pies, the leftover stirfry cut into smaller pieces, the rest of the leftover roasted squash and beets, finely diced, the meat from two chicken thighs, the last of the brown rice and some poultry seasoning. The soup was divided into three 2-cup portions.  I froze them so I'll have something for lunches or evenings when I don't want to cook.

Please share your best dinner or series of meals in the comments on my Facebook page and then share the heck out of this post so others can like your comment and participate with comments of their own. 

Let the challenge begin!