Great food, great fun, oh yes and a wedding!

A wedding? In Florida? In October? What a great time for a road trip! The daughter of good friends is getting married and we can't miss the fun. Festivities on Saturday included a visit to a tapas bar, mi Tomatina, in Winter Park.

Mi Tomatina is located in a quaint historic district of Winter Park. The brick covered streets are lined with shops and restaurants.

For those who have heard this name, Tomatina, there is a festival in Spain, La Tomatina which is only slightly crazier than running with the bulls in Pamplona.


The elegance and gracious service we experienced at the tapas bar mi Tomatina in no way resembles the antics that are experienced during the festival in Spain! The tapas were delicious, stuffed mushrooms, croquettes, all kinds of delicious morsels. The three bartenders were gracious and attentive. They  were from Spain, Venezuela and Cuba, in the order you see them below.

Michelle and her brother Ryan enjoyed the evening.

Fran and Annabel entertain Raylen.

Jill and Michelle, friends in college, enjoyed this celebration.

Ryan and his future (tomorrow) brother-in-law, Scott. 

K Restaurant, the site of the wedding and reception has amazing food! Kevin, the chef and owner, treated us to grilled oysters and shrimp, pulled pork, roasted lamb, lobster mac and cheese (oh my!), the food was planned by Scott Copeland, the groom, and Kevin. 

Grilling oysters, so yummy!

Pulled pork, delicious!

Oysters and shrimp !

Lamb, pita, potatoes, tzatziki sauce, so scrumptious!

In back of the restaurant, near the restaurant's herb garden, the guests wait for the ceremony to start.

Ryan, the brother of the bride and his wife Jessamyn and son Raylen wait for the wedding to start.

Michelle and Nicholas enjoy the party!

Michelle and Scott Copeland

Scott's family with Nicholas and Annabel

Michelle's family with Jill and Sally

Fran Rubio, mother of the bride and Don, my sweetie, enjoyed the festivities!

Ryan, Scott, Don and Al, the bride's father 

So much fun packed into two days, 

Wishing Scott and Michelle a lifetime of happiness!

A day at the farm!

When you live in the city, sometimes you just need to commune with nature on a farm. My favorite kind of a farm is a sheep farm, specifically Rising Meadow Farm in Liberty, North Carolina. Once a month I go to sit and spin and knit and eat dessert with friends at the farm. On clear nights we stop at the end of the driveway and have a little star gazing time. There is so much less light there than in the city that we can see lots of stars.

But this visit to the farm was all about Farm Fest. It is a once-a-year event with animals, crafts and food that is a real treat.

The alpacas were very friendly and really soft. 

There was music under the big tent, which we enjoyed while eating a lamb burger with spinach and feta cheese---yummy.

While waiting in line for the lamb burgers we passed the time with a dish of ice cream from Homeland Creamery. Dessert first is a good idea, don't you think?

These angora goats have built in back scratchers, you wouldn't believe how they can bend around to scratch their backs with those horns, I envy them. They produce mohair and I love to combine it with the sheep's wool to spin.

These lambs were born last spring. The dark one in the middle is a Navarro-Churro. His fleece is great for rugs. The one with the dark face on the right is a Corriedale. Maybe next shearing day (Feb. 2014) I can try to buy his fleece.

Farm Fest occurs each year in the fall at Rising Meadow Farm. In February they shear the sheep. Watch their website for information.

www.risingmeadow.com

Variations on a theme--more bread flavors!

The basic recipe for the Whole Wheat Curry Bread (see the previous post) is a great one-loaf recipe. The bread is soft and great for sandwiches, has a nice crumb (internal texture) and browns nicely in the baking process.

This time I added Smoked Sundried Tomatoes, shredded sharp cheddar cheese and sunflower seeds. Instead of making a long loaf, I tried a round boule shape. Just be sure to omit the curry and tumeric in the original recipe.

I used about 1/2 cup of shredded sharp cheddar cheese, 1/4 cup of raw sunflower seeds and 1/3 cup of minced smoked sun dried tomatoes. These amounts worked well and didn't adversely affect the texture of the bread. The smoky flavor of the sun dried tomatoes seems to be the prominent flavor and the cheddar melts in the cooking process and colors the bread a light orange. It was yummy and smelled great right out of the oven. I added these new ingredients when I added the last of the flour. All of the kneading was done in the mixer with the dough hook, just about 5 minutes. This recipe is so easy!

I wish the color of the bread showed up better here, but you can see the bits of sunflower seeds (no need to mince them at all) and sun dried tomatoes.

Here is the recipe again. Go to this link and remember to omit the curry and tumeric. Add the cheese, tomatoes and sunflower seeds with the last 3/4 cup of flour. Kneading the bread in the mixer with the dough hook and these added ingredients was not a problem. 

Whole Wheat Curry Bread Recipe

To get that design in the top of the bread try these steps:

• after the 2nd rising of the dough dust the surface lightly with flour, I use a little bit of flour in a sieve
• use a serrated knife and cut the slices or a crisscross design about 1/4 inch deep in the surface of the bread.
• the surface will open slightly and will open more while baking
• the results will be like the first picture above

This was a delicious experiment...

Wonder what we can try next?

Curry Wheat Bread

While searching for a recipe for curry flavored bread I found this link:
Curry Wheat Bread Recipe

The recipe is easy to follow and creates one beautiful loaf of a soft crust bread that is great to eat with dinner or use to make sandwiches.

I added more tumeric than the recipe calls for to get a deep yellow color and also added shelled raw sunflower seeds, about 1/8 of a cup. Next time I will add close to 1/4 of a cup and maybe some pumpkin seeds too!

The resulting loaf was beautiful and delicious.

I love the yellow color and the loaf slices like a dream. Just before you bake it you dust the top with a little flour and make 1/4 inch deep slices with a serrated knife. The top photo shows this best.

If you aren't interested in making a bread like this but want to try one, go to Loaf Bakery, South Elm St. Greensboro, NC, on Saturday mornings. That is the day that they make their curry bread. It is marvelous! See their link on the right.

Cool weather, time for soup, yummy!

There are a lot of great soup recipes on the Food Network website. One is a white bean soup with ham and potatoes by Cathy Lowe.

Senate Bean Soup

I followed the recipe except that I added 3 potatoes instead of one. Slices of country ham with the hock included provided most of the salt and little bits of meat. I also think it would be good with the left over ham bone from a baked ham. More salt would be needed though. Just season the onions, celery and carrots with salt and pepper when cooking them prior to adding to the beans if using the baked ham.

After everything is tender, take a couple of cups of the broth including the beans and potatoes (no meat) and put it into the blender to puree. Then add it back to the soup pot. This makes the soup wonderfully thick.

All you need is some good home made bread to dip and enjoy!

Baking bread again, part experiment -- part invention -- all good!

It's time to bake bread again. This time I am going back to a recipe from Ann Faye of Rising Meadow Farm in Liberty, NC. It is one she makes constantly and one I have made successfully. This time I am going to change the kinds of flower a little, none of the other ingredients or amount of flour, just how much of different kinds of flour I use,

This recipe makes 3 loaves in 9x4x5 inch loaf pans. Bake at 350 in a preheated oven.

Combine in a sauce pan to heat until just warm:

• 3 cups of milk
• 1 Tablespoon of salt
• 1 stick of unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup of honey

In the bowl of your mixer with the paddle attachment, combine the following dry ingredients:

• 7 1/2 cups of flour, this time I used:
• 2 cups of King Arthur whole wheat flour
• 2 cups of King Arthur white whole wheat flour
• 2 cups of unbleached all purpose flour (not self rising)
• 1 1/2 cups of King Arthur bread flour
• 3 Tablespoons of yeast (from packets)

Add 2 beaten eggs to the flour mixture, mix gently.

When the milk mixture is just barely warm,  add it to the flour/egg mixture.

Switch to the dough hook and knead for 5 minutes at medium speed on the mixer. The dough will be sticky. 

Scrape it out onto a floured surface to continue to knead by hand, adding all purpose flour to keep it from sticking to the surface. 

When the dough is elastic (it responds to being poked with your finger by returning to its shape), turn it out into a large bowl that your have lightly coated with butter.

Roll the dough over to form a smooth top, it will have a coating of butter.

Allow it to rest in a warm place until doubled in size. I used my newly created proofing box to let the bread rise till doubled in size. It took about 35 minutes to double in size.

Previously I had made a "proofing box" using a cardboard box and a large plastic garbage bag. That worked well, but I didn't like having to find a place to store it between uses.

After another conversation with the bakers at Loaf Bakery and enjoying one of their brioche rolls with cinnamon (see their link on the right) I got an idea about how to convert a shelf on my storage rack in the kitchen to a proofing box. I installed a 25 watt bulb on one side of the shelf. This device was previously used to view slides (photographic, not microscopic). Next I cut a sheet of heavy duty plastic to wrap around the sides of the shelf and attached it to the shelf above using magnets. Hurray for metal shelves!  This worked fabulously and the space can be used to store baking pans when not being used for proofing!

On the right you can see the bulb inside the old slide-viewing apparatus. The dough has just been divided into the 3 pans. I had to turn the light off to get this picture,  The plastic is clear and doesn't show up here.

Turn out the dough which has doubled in size onto a floured surface. Knead and divide into 3 portions. Flatten and roll the dough with your hands, tucking the ends to fit into the buttered loaf pan. 

Place the 3 loaf pans to the proofing box to allow the dough to rise a second time. When the dough has almost doubled in size, put the pans into a preheated 350 degree oven on the middle shelf. 

Bake for 25 minutes.

Cool in the loaf pans for 15  minutes and turn out onto a wire rack to completely cool.

When the loaves had cooled, I cut into one and made a tomato sandwich--with cheddar cheese--and mayonnaise--and salt and pepper.

Life is good!

It's pie time!

One of the cookbooks on my bookshelf that I haven't explored is Rose Levy Beranbaum's The Pie and Pastry Bible. I was told that it was a great resource by someone who had actually met Ms.  Beranbaum and who is also a pastry chef.

Grocery shopping this Saturday included the ingredients for an apple pie. Not just any apple pie mind you, The Open Faced Designer Apple Pie as it appears in her afore mentioned book.

Not only do you get a recipe in this cookbook, but a detailed description of how different kinds of flour affect baking. It is like a class in baking. Trying to be a good student, I poured over the instructions, digressing to every note about this and that, found on another page.

I devoted the whole day to this pie and it was worth it. Now I don't have permission to give out her recipe, but suffice it to say that the crust making is crucial. The crust has cream cheese and butter and very little water. It also has apple cider. Cream cheese I learned has a lot of water in it. There is a reason given for each ingredient and how it affects the outcome of the pie.

Apples were purchased at the farmer's market on Saturday. Rose suggests using a combination of apples, choose firm apples that will stand up to baking.

Each step in the recipe was followed exactly--you really do need to get this book!

Hours later, I hurry for no one these days -- retirement has its perks, Don and I were enjoying a delicious apple pie with vanilla ice cream of course! Wish we had smell-a-vision so you could enjoy this too!

Apples are cut very thin and allowed to macerate for up to 3 hours. The juices are collected and reduced to make a concentrated syrup which is poured back over the apples once they are placed in the pie crust.

A final touch is a coating of apricot jelly over the apples!

The little koala spoon rest is my kitchen mascot and was a gift from Australia, thanks Rainey! He shows up in a lot of my cooking posts.

Oh yes, it was soooooo  good!

The Pie and Pastry Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum

Scribner, 1998

click this link below to go to Rose's blog:

Rose Levy's blog