Skillet cornbread

Here I am, on Thanksgiving Eve (does that even exist?), trying to make stuff ahead so I don't lose my mind tomorrow like I did in 2008, break my knee like I did in 2009 or end up with food even in my hair like I did in 2010. You live, you learn, they say. We'll see. 

As of now, it's 11 am on Wednesday and I've already baked cornbread for my gluten-free stuffing. That's all folks. It's not like I'm crazy ahead, but in the next few hours I'm going to crank out some serious food... at least the appetizers, the stuffing and the cranberry sauce.

I'll keep you all posted. Hope you are having a great almost-holiday weekend =)

A funny note: buttermilk doesn't exist in Switzerland. Or if it does they hide it so well I couldn't find. So my day started by having to make buttermilk, which is not complicated, you just mix a scant cup of milk with a tablespoon of lemon juice... but it kind of makes you think about the challenges ahead.

SKILLET CORNBREAD

• 3 teaspoons vegetable oil 
• 2 cups buttermilk 
• 1 large egg 
• 1 3/4 cups yellow cornmeal
• 1 teaspoon baking powder 
• 1 teaspoon baking soda 
• 1 teaspoon salt 
• 
  

• Coat bottom and sides of a 10-inch cast-iron skillet with bacon drippings; heat in a 450° oven for 10 minutes.
• Whisk together buttermilk and egg. Add cornmeal, stirring well.
• Stir in baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Pour batter into hot skillet.
• Bake at 450° for 15 minutes.

Olive and pancetta bread

Everyone who knows me knows that I'm not much of a baker. I don't like using yeast, mostly because I'm afraid that the dough won't rise. And I'm usually right. When I try to bake something that requires the dough to double in size and all those other things that doughs are supposed to do I almost always give up and pick a different recipe. What can I say? I'm a chicken when it comes to baking. I'm sure it's all about perfect measures and proportions which, as you might have guessed, are not my forte.

So the only type of bread I know I can bake is the kind that you cook in a plumcake tin, the kind that doesn't require kneading and resting and all that. I think people refer to those breads as "easy" or "quick" breads, which is what drew me to them in the first place. And they were right, they are easy and quick to make and, to top it off, they are also delicious and totally customizable. Once you have the base recipe down you can pretty much put whatever herb or vegetable or meat you like and make a different bread every time. So far olives and pancetta is my favorite combination, but who knows? I might change my mind soon...

OLIVE AND PANCETTA BREAD

2 cups all purpose flour
3 eggs
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1/3 cup skim milk
3.5 ounces pitted green olives
3.5 ounces pitted black olives
3.5 ounces chopped smoked pancetta
3.5 ounces chopped Swiss cheese
once packet of yeast
salt and pepper
 
Preheat oven at 350 F.

Spray stamp with cooking spray or cover with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, combine eggs with oil and milk. Then add flour, cheese, olives and pancetta. Season with salt and pepper. Stir well, then slowly add yeast. Pour into prepared stamp and put it in the oven immediately.

Bake for about 50 minutes. Let the bread cool before removing it from the stamp.

Zucchini, cheese and chive quick bread

I think that, by now, you all know that recipes that contain yeast and I don't get along. Yeast and I are both temperamental and moody, which isn't a good basis for a solid, loving relationship. Problem is, I love bread. Even bigger problem is, I hate making it. Because it never turns out right. Because the dough doesn't double in size. Because it ends up being either wet in the middle or burnt around the edges. Or both. Because I'm that good.

So usually I don't make bread —I just buy it.

Lately, though, I've been dreaming about making my own bread, mostly because I see that around the blogosphere everyone is doing it and, as my parents would say, when you see that everyone is jumping off the bridge I suddenly want to do it too. Also, I'm still unemployed, living by myself —although temporarily— for the first time in six years, which means that I have a whole lot of freaking time on my hands. I'm being honest here: if I had a job or if my boyfriend wasn't 5,000 miles away I'd never even think of making bread. I'd go to the store and buy it because I'd have much better things to do than battling with yeast to make my own loaf of crunchy goodness.

But I'm jobless and Tommy, for the time being, isn't here, so I find myself with plenty of free time and nothing to do. Which makes me kinda crazy I guess since, lately, I have found myself doing crazy, out-of-this-world shit such as ironing my clothes, watching tv and, you know it, baking my own bread.

ZUCCHINI BREAD

2 2/3 cups all purpose flour
3 eggs
1/2 cup canola oil
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
3 tablespoons minced fresh chives
2 zucchini, grated
2 handfuls fresh basil leaves, minced
2 tablespoons minced fresh chives
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
Salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 350. Grease and flour a loaf pan and set aside.

In a large bowl beat the eggs with milk and oil. Add flour, baking powder, baking soda, the cheese, the herbs and grated zucchini. Season with salt and pepper, and mix well. Pour dough into prepared loaf pan.

Bake for about one hour.

Irish soda brown bread

Happy belated St. Patrick's Day, everyone! Although I'm not Irish I celebrated St. Paddy's day yesterday by cooking a whole big Irish meal of corned beef and cabbage and soda bread and then we didn't eat it because we ended up going to a friend's house and eat macaroni and cheese instead. I know, I know. But it was delicious macaroni and cheese —the home made kind— and to feel a little more Irish we had shots of Jameson. So, there. And the big Irish meal will still be good tonight, if not better. For some reason corned beef and cabbage sounds like the type of meal that is even better the next day, doesn't it?

Well, I'll let you know about that tomorrow. In the mean time, I can tell you the soda bread was really good —I had a slice this morning with my coffee, as I was clumsily trying to remember what the hell was I thinking when I said yes to the shots of Jameson. I usually don't drink whisky. And this morning I remembered why. I had one of those nice metallic headaches that just don't go away. Not even with coffee and ibuprofen. Not even with delicious toasted homemade soda bread.

You live, you learn. Next year I'll stay away from the whisky. But I'll still make the bread which thanks to Cooking Light magazine is not only great but also good for you.

BROWN SODA BREAD

From Cooking Light

• Cooking spray
• 11.25  ounces  whole-wheat flour (about 2 1/2 cups)
• 2.25  ounces  all-purpose flour (about 1/2 cup)
• 1/2  cup  steel-cut oats (such as McCann's)
• 2  tablespoons  brown sugar
• 1  tablespoon  wheat germ
• 1  teaspoon  baking soda
• 1  teaspoon  baking powder
• 1/2  teaspoon  salt
• 2  cups  low-fat buttermilk
• 1  large egg, lightly beaten

Preheat oven to 325°.

Coat a 9 x 5–inch loaf pan with cooking spray. Line the pan with parchment paper, and coat with cooking spray.

Weigh or lightly spoon flours into dry measuring cups, and level with a knife. Combine flours and next 6 ingredients (through salt). Combine buttermilk and egg; add to flour mixture. Stir just until combined.

Spoon the mixture into prepared pan. Bake at 325° for 1 hour and 5 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Invert bread onto a wire rack; cool completely. Remove parchment; slice bread into 12 slices.

Gingerbread muffins

Is it finally Friday? I don't know about you, but this week -instead of feeling shorter because of the holiday- felt longer. It must have something to do with the fact that the wait is killing me already. Wait for what, you might ask? I'm not going to say it because I'm superstitious like that. Let's just say that is something really important, something that I've been dreaming of for a while and something that, unfortunately, doesn't depend on me in the slightest way. All that I could do, "my part", is done. And now I have to wait until the end of March to receive an answer. I know, right? If I'm already going crazy on January 22, can you imagine what my state will be on, say, March 15? Ugh. Better not think about it.

But I digress. Since it's Friday, it means that I'm publishing a recipe I've learned from another great food blog: The Ungourmet. A while ago, Kim posted a wonderful recipe to make gingerbread loaves with icing and, since I didn't have mini pans and I don't much care for icing, I thought: Why not make it into muffins? It was quite the good idea, even if I say so myself. They turned out packed with gingery spiceness, the perfect match to my morning coffee. Even Tommy, who usually only praises banana nut muffins said that these were a great alternative. And thank God for that, because it's freaking banana season here in Florida and, to be honest, if I eat another banana I'll have a meltdown.

GINGERBREAD MUFFINS

(Adapted from The Ungourmet)
Makes 12 muffins

1 1/2 cups flour
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup raisins
1/3 cup dried cranberries
1/3 cup chopped almonds
1/2 cup softened butter
1/2 cup molasses
1/2 cup water
1 1/2 tsp fresh minced ginger
1 egg

In a bowl combine the flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, salt, raisins, cranberries and almonds.

Place butter in a large bowl and using an electric mixer, beat until creamy. Add the molasses, water, ginger, and egg. Mix to combine. Add the flour mixture and beat until well combined.

Divide evenly into a muffin pan. Placepan into a 350 degree oven for about 20 minutes or until toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Concord grape muffins

When I was a kid we had concord grapes growing over our back porch -quite a curious fact since we lived in the middle of a big city. But the grapes grew plump and perfect and in early September I started noticing that day by day they would slowly change from green to dark purple. The anticipation almost killed me. I would beg my parents to harvest "just a few grapes", but we usually had to wait until the end of the month, when they were all of the sudden ripe and ready to eat. Of course my mother was presented with the problem of what to do with baskets and baskets of concord grapes and she usually started a campaign to give most of them away to friends and family members. It was a desperate endeavor, of course, because you know how hard it is to give away mounds of produce to people that already have tons of it at home. I wish she had known that concord grapes are amazingly good in muffins, something I discovered this morning after finding out that my grapes were getting dangerously close to that point where you have to throw them out. I made a big batch so that I can give some to her and make her, too, wish she had known about this recipe when we had our annual grape invasion.

Anyways, back to the muffins. I usually make them with bananas and today I thought I'd have to put something thickening in the batter instead of the bananas, something with a similar consistency that would help with the binding. So I thought, why not ricotta? Well... wow! What a discovery. It made them incredibly moist and fluffy -better than all the other muffins I've ever made put together. Yes. That good.

CONCORD GRAPE MUFFINS
Makes 12

9 ounces ricotta
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup flour
3 ounces almonds, pulverized in a food processor (or you can use almond flour if you can find. I couldn't. Not even at Whole Foods)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
2 cups concord grapes

In a large bowl beat the eggs into the ricotta until smooth. Slowly add the sugar, flour and almonds, baking soda and baking powder. Stir with a spoon until just mixed. Fold in grapes.

Cook in 350F oven for about 25 minutes.

Pumpkin bread

Happy first day of October, everyone! I was pleased to find out that this morning the temperature was below 75F and the humidity was almost gone. I'm sure it's just a tease and we will get some more gross, over 90 degrees days, but it's a start. It's a remainder that in less than 4 weeks summer will be gone for good, even in Florida. To celebrate the beginning of my favorite season I made pumpkin bread, an obvious choice, I agree, but see... I've been itching to make it since the middle of July, so I couldn't resist anymore. Eating the first slice with coffee was the highlight of a day that is already turning out to be a pain, so I'm exceptionally glad that I've baked it.

PUMPKIN BREAD

8 ounces all-purpose flour
1/2 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup canola oil or applesauce
1/4 cup milk
2 large eggs
1/3 cup water
1/2 can pumpkin

Preheat oven to 350°.

Combine flour, baking powder, bakind soda, salt and spices in a bowl.

Place sugar, oil, milk, and eggs in a large bowl and beat with a mixer at high speed until well blended. Add water and pumpkin, and beat at low speed until blended.

Add flour mixture to pumpkin mixture, beating at low speed just until combined. Spoon batter in a greased loaf pan.

Bake at 350° for 1 hour or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean.

Banana nut muffins

If you live in Florida, you know the problem. Everyone -and I mean everyone- you know owns a banana tree and they all make a truckload of bananas at exactly the same time of the year. On top of that, I have the additional problem of the kind folks at the organic co-op filling my produce bags with bananas every week. As much as Tommy likes bananas, there is only so many a human being can consume each day. What to do with rest?

The good news is that bananas freeze well. You can mash them, store them in ziplock begs and shove them in the freezer until it's time to make muffins. Based on my calculations if the co-op guys keep the bananas coming I will never catch up and have a banana-free freezer. But I will always have fresh banana nut muffins laying around the house, which isn't shabby a all I guess.

BANANA NUT MUFFINS:
Makes 18 muffins

2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
2 beaten eggs
1 1/2 cup mashed bananas
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup melted butter
1/2 cup chopped walnuts or chopped pecans

Grease bottom and sides of two muffin pans, set aside.
Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg and 1/4 teaspon of salt. Make a well in center of flour mixture, set aside.
In a medium bowl, combine eggs, bananas, sugar and butter. Add egg mixture to flour mixture. Stir just until moistened. Fold in nuts. Spoon batter into pan.
Bake in a 350 over for 20 to 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in a muffin comes out clean.