Breads and Grains

Ingredients
¹⁄₄ cup sugar
4 eggs, well beaten
¹⁄₂ cup butter, softened
5 slices bread, cubed
20 ounces crushed pineapple in juice, drained (Since I tend to make a double batch of this I’ll use one can of crushed pineapple and one can of pineapple chunks.  Either one work well on their own!)

Instructions
1. Preheat oven to 350*F. 

2. Beat sugar, eggs, and butter.  Fold in bread and pineapple.  Pour into 9 by 9-inch baking pan. 

3. Bake for 45 minutes or until fully set and browning on top. 

Comments
Many years ago my parents’ neighbors brought over a ham feast for my family.  The meal included this amazing dish that none of us had ever had before.  We gobbled it up and my mom asked for the recipe so I could make it in the future.  The original recipe was almost a dessert with an entire cup of sugar, but I’ve been decreasing it over the years since and we find ¹⁄₄ cup to be the perfect amount for a dinner side dish.  This pairs surprisingly well with ham and is met with compliments every time I serve it. 

In fact, I often serve ham just to have an excuse to make this!

Shown here with Green Bean Casserole (and store-bought ham).

Person - Nancy Westlake

Ingredients
4 eggs, beaten
3 cups sugar
¹⁄₂ teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
²⁄₃ cup water
1 cup oil (I have used olive oil with no problems)
3 ¹⁄₂ cups all purpose flour
15 ounce can pumpkin (Not pumpkin pie filling)

Instructions
1. Preheat oven to 350*F.  

2. Mix all ingredients in a large bowl and pour into 2 greased bread pans.

3. Bake for one hour or until done.

Comments
This is a recipe from Art’s mom and it has always been a favorite of his.  Like most quick breads this is dense, moist, and super flavorful.  

And, if you ever cut into a loaf and realize it’s lighter than it should be because you left the can of pumpkin sitting on your counter at home instead of adding it to the batter… well, it makes a delicious pumpkinless spice bread as well.  Not that I know from experience or anything.  ;)

Person - Art’s Mom

Ingredients
5 cloves garlic, grated with a microplane grinder or in a blender cup
8 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened
¹⁄₂ teaspoon water
¹⁄₄ teaspoon salt
¹⁄₄ teaspoon pepper
1 (18-20 inch) baguette, sliced in half horizontally
1 ¹⁄₂ cups shredded Italian cheese blend (While low-fat and fat-free cheese will work, I feel like it doesn’t melt as well.)  

Instructions
1. Adjust the oven rack to lower-middle position and heat oven to 400 degrees. Cook garlic, 1 tablespoon butter, and water in small nonstick skillet over low heat, stirring occasionally, until straw coloured. About 7 to 10 minutes.

2. Mix hot garlic, remaining butter, salt and pepper in bowl and spread on cut sides of bread. Sandwich bread back together and wrap loaf in foil. Place on baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes.

3. Carefully unwrap bread and place halves, buttered sides up, on baking sheet. Bake until just beginning to colour, about 10 minutes. Remove from oven and set oven to broil.

4. Sprinkle bread with cheese. Broil until cheese has melted and bread is crisp, 1 to 2 minutes. Transfer bread to cutting board with cheese side facing down. Cut into pieces and serve.  

Note: If, like me, you manage to melt all the butter in step 2, just place it in a sealed container in the fridge and shake or stir it up every 5-10 minutes while it resolidifies.  Once it’s the consistency of softened butter again, proceed with the rest of the recipe.  

Comments
This is a recipe from Cook’s Country.  Sadly I got a bit distracted trying to get dinner together and the edges of the bread got a bit more charred than was ideal.  Make sure to keep an eye on things when you are broiling!  The taste was good but I found it to be a bit oily.  I’m not entirely sure what I can do to fix that other than to use less butter, so I think I’ll try that next time.

Cook’s Country

Ingredients
³⁄₄ cup margarine or butter
1 ¹⁄₂ cups celery stalks (with leaves), chopped
³⁄₄ cup onion finely, chopped
9 cups soft bread, cubed
¹⁄₂ teaspoon dried thyme, or 1 ¹⁄₂ teaspoon fresh
¹⁄₂ teaspoon dried sage, or 1 ¹⁄₂ teaspoon fresh
1 ¹⁄₂ teaspoons salt
¹⁄₄ teaspoon pepper
3 cups apples (Gala), chopped
³⁄₄ cup raisins

Instructions
1. Melt butter in large pot over medium-high heat. Cook celery and onion in butter, stirring occasionally, until tender; remove from heat.

2. Toss celery mixture with remaining ingredients.

3. Cook.

Notes on cooking: The way you cook this is really dependent upon personal preference.  I only roast small turkey (12 pounds or so) at Thanksgiving and I use some weird rotation method, so I don’t actually stuff the bird.  If you use a larger bird with a large cavity, go for it, just be sure that the stuffing is completely done in the middle.  I usually drizzle some of the turkey fat from roasting over this and bake it in a casserole dish at 350*F until hot.  I’ve achieved a similar effect with butter if I don’t have turkey fat or want the stuffing to be vegetarian.  When I’m not making a whole bird, I tend to buy packages of “turkey tenderloins” and I put the stuffing in the casserole dish, place the tenderloin on top of the stuffing, and bake as directed on the turkey package.  This is normally 350*F for 50-60 minutes.  That lets the good turkey juices drip into the stuffing and make everything delicious.

Comments
This is the stuffing that I grew up not eating, because I thought stuffing was gross.  Then I grew up.  Looking back I wonder how on earth I ever found something so awesome to be gross!  The first time I made Thanksgiving dinner on my own was when I lived in England and I had to get my mom to send me a copy of her “dressing” recipe so I could have this bit of home overseas.  Art loves it as well so I always end up making a double batch just so he can enjoy the leftovers for days.  This is one of those foods that he has a hard time sharing.

Betty Crocker’s New Cookbook (8th edition)

Ingredients
5 large eggs
2 cups milk
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
Salt and pepper, to taste
18 slices firm white bread (such as English muffin bread), cubed
6 ounces prosciutto, thinly sliced
8 ounces goat cheese, crumbled
4 ounces provolone cheese, grated or cut into small cubes
¹⁄₄ cup green onions, chopped
6 tablespoons fresh basil, thinly sliced
3 tablespoons butter, melted

Instructions
1. Whisk eggs, milk, mustard, salt, and pepper in a bowl.  

2. In a 9x13-inch glass baking dish, mix bread, prosciutto, goat cheese, provolone and green onions.  Pour egg mixture over bread mixture and press down gently on the bread to ensure coverage.  Drizzle melted butter over strata.  Cover and refrigerate overnight or 8 hours.  

3. Preheat oven to 350°F. Uncover strata and let stand at room temperature 30 minutes. Bake until center is set, about 1 hour. Remove from oven, cut into large squares and serve.

Comments
I have no idea where I found this recipe but it’s been in my files for some time now.  Strata is normally a breakfast dish but the ingredients didn’t scream breakfast to me.  I made this for dinner to go along with steak and we all enjoyed it quite a bit!

Shown here with Red Wine Marinated Flank Steak.

Unknown

Ingredients
4 tablespoons butter, cold
2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup brown sugar, packed
1 ¹⁄₂ teaspoons baking powder
¹⁄₂ teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
³⁄₄ cup milk
1 tablespoon lemon zest
1 egg
1 cup carrot, grated

Instructions
1. Heat the oven to 350*F. Grease a 9x5-inch loaf pan with butter.

2. Stir together the dry ingredients. Cut the butter into bits, and then use a fork, 2 knives, or your fingers to cut or rub it into the dry ingredients until there are no pieces bigger than a small pea. (You can use a food processor for this step but not for the following step.)

3. Beat together the milk, zest, and egg. Pour into the dry ingredients, mixing just enough to moisten. Fold in the carrots then pour and spoon the batter into the loaf pan. Bake for about an hour, or until the bread is golden brown and a tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool on a rack for 15 minutes before removing from the pan.  

Comments
This recipe is from the 10th Anniversary Edition of Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything.  I was looking for some way to use up all the carrots I have from the past few weeks of the CSA and I remembered that my dad is a great lover of carrot cake.  While looking for a recipe for carrot cake I ran across this recipe for carrot bread and was sold.  The recipe is simple to double, which I did.  I gifted loaves to both my parents and brother.  Luckily my parents were kind enough to serve it for breakfast, so I was able to try some and take a picture as well.

How to Cook Everything (10th Anniversary)

Ingredients
4 bacon slices, thinly sliced
1 small sweet onion, chopped
¹⁄₂ pound fresh okra, trimmed and chopped
1 large egg
1 cup buttermilk
1 cup cornmeal (preferably stone-ground)
1 teaspoon sugar
¹⁄₄ teaspoon cayenne
Oil for frying

Instructions
1. Cook bacon in a large skillet over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until crisp. Drain bacon on paper towels, reserving fat in skillet. Add onion and okra to fat in skillet and cook over medium heat, stirring, until beginning to soften, about 3-5 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in bacon.

2. Whisk egg in a medium bowl, then whisk in buttermilk, cornmeal, sugar, cayenne, and 1 teaspoon salt until smooth. Stir in okra mixture.

3. Wipe skillet clean. Add enough oil to skillet to measure ¹⁄₄ inch and heat over medium heat until it shimmers. Cook rounded tablespoons of batter (6 to 7 fritters per batch), turning once, until golden, 2 to 3 minutes per batch. Transfer to paper towels to drain. Serve immediately.

Comments
Having never had okra before, I turned to Epicurious.com for inspiration.  I notice I have a habit of frying foods I’m unsure of.  I found these fritters to be delicious.  The okra tastes sort of like a bell pepper, but not quite.  I could definitely taste them in the fritter and enjoyed them quite a bit.  We did have quite a bit of debate regarding whether this should be filed as a Vegetable or a Bread and Grain.  Breads and Grains won. 

Shown here with Grilled Flank Steak with Shallot and Red Wine Sauce.

Internet - Epicurious

Ingredients
1 ¹⁄₂ cups sugar
¹⁄₃ cups brown sugar
³⁄₄ cups oil (Believe it or not, I use olive oil)
2 eggs
2 cups flour
³⁄₄ teaspoons baking powder
³⁄₄ teaspoons baking soda
¹⁄₂ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1 ¹⁄₂ cups zucchini, finely chopped or shredded
³⁄₄ cups nut pieces such as walnuts or pecans, optional

Instructions
1. Preheat oven to 350*F.

2. Combine sugars, oil, and eggs and mix. In another bowl, mix flour, baking powder, soda, salt, and cinnamon. Add to sugar mixture to moisten. Carefully fold in zucchini and nuts, if using. Divide mixture into 2 greased loaf pans. Bake for 55 minutes or until done.

Comments
I have no idea where this recipe is from but I’ve been using it for a few years now.  It suits me because, aside from the zucchini, it only uses pantry items and eggs.  It makes a delicious, cinnamony, and dense bread.  I can never decide if this is dessert, breakfast, or what!

Unknown

Ingredients
1 large can garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed (Large cans are 29 ounces.  Feel free to use a 15 ounce can if you’re not a lover of chickpeas like I am)
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
5 tablespoons olive oil, divided
2 cloves garlic, minced
7 teaspoons cumin seeds
2 teaspoons turmeric
2 teaspoons paprika
2 cups water
1 cup quinoa, rinsed well and drained
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 ¹⁄₂ pounds yellow squash, sliced
4 green onions, chopped
¹⁄₄ cup fresh parsley, chopped

Instructions
1. Combine garbanzo beans and lemon juice in large bowl. Add 3 tablespoons oil and garlic.  Stir to combine. Let marinate at least 15 minutes and up to 2 hours.

2. Mix cumin, turmeric and paprika in a small bowl.  

3. Heat 1 tablespoon oil in medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Add two tablespoons of spice blend and quinoa; stir until fragrant, about 1 or 2 minutes. Add 2 cups water and salt; bring to simmer, stirring occasionally. Reduce heat to medium-low. Cover and simmer until all water is absorbed, about 16 minutes.

4. Meanwhile, heat a large skillet over medium-high heat with 1 tablespoon of olive oil.  Add squash and remaining spice blend, working in batches if necessary and sautéing until tender and slightly browned.  

5. Add squash, green onions, and parsley, then garbanzo bean mixture to quinoa. Toss to blend. Season with salt and pepper. Serve warm or cold.  

Comments
This is inspired by a recipe I found on Epicurious.com.  Due to comments on the recipe I increased all of the spices in the recipe and sautéed the quinoa before adding water.  I also used yellow squash instead of zucchini because that’s what I happened to have to work with.  This is one of the beautiful things about cooking, it’s so easy to modify recipes based on what you happen to have in your kitchen and what’s in season or available.  

I’ve been wanting to try quinoa for a while and finally got around to picking some up at my local health food store.  Then it was just a matter of remembering that I had it and finding a recipe while in the midst of meal planning.  Art declared that he could eat the whole bowl of this by himself and we all greatly enjoyed the dish.  

Shown here with Moroccan Chicken.

Internet - Epicurious