Basic Bread Pudding Recipe

Been a little while, hasn't it? Sorry about that, life has just gotten in the way the last few months. Long story short, I'm a full time student again in addition to working full time. But I think I'm in a good position to get back to blogging (and crafting) regularly again. To kick things off, I have a delightful recipe that I love to make in the fall: bread pudding.

For me, bread pudding is always a fall dish, I rarely make it any other time of the year. My first experience with them was when I made a pumpkin bread pudding, but sometimes you really crave the basics. This recipe is easy to do and you don't need anything special to do it. You probably have all the necessary ingredients on hand already.

What You'll Need:

5-6 cups stale bread, cubed
4 cups milk
3 eggs, beaten in a small bowl
1/2 a stick of butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
2 Tbsp vanilla (yes, tablespoons, it's most of the flavor)
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp allspice
1/8 tsp nutmeg

The Process:
Preheat your oven to 375°F. In medium heat in a large pot, combine the milk, butter, sugars, vanilla, and spices. Heat until sugar is dissolved, butter is melted, and spices are well incorporated about 10 minutes. Turn off the heat.

Take a 1/2 cup of your pudding mixture and slowly pour it into the bowl with the beaten eggs, whisking the entire time. Repeat once more. Then add the whole mixture back into the pot and mix well. This tempers the eggs so you can add them into the hot liquid without ruining the texture. It's a cool biology thing involving denaturing proteins, but basically you just don't want the heat from the liquid to cook the eggs. Same principle applies when making custards, too.

Put your cubed bread into a 9x13 or equivalent baking dish. Pour the whole pot over the bread, letting it soak in for a few minutes. Then put into the oven and bake for 35-40 minutes, until set. The top should be a little brown.

It's best to eat it the same day or the day after you make it. Bread pudding doesn't keep too well. You can refrigerate leftovers overnight and heat them up in the microwave.

Now, if you have fresh bread that you'd like to turn into bread pudding, you absolutely can. I like to cube it up, put it on a baking sheet, and bake it on a low heat, 200-250 degrees, for 15 minutes, checking it and stirring halfway through. Dry but not hard is the key here. Let it cool a few minutes and then it's ready to use.

Homemade Garlic Butter and Toast Recipe

I've known about the deliciousness of making garlic butter at home, but it wasn't until recently that I tried it myself. I don't know what took me so long, it's delicious and simple to make!

There are so many uses for garlic butter, chief among them for me is garlic bread. But you can also use it on baked potatoes, to saute shrimp, to make croutons, over steamed vegetables, on steak or an endless amount of other ways. I certainly haven't thought of them all.

What You'll Need:
1 stick softened, salted butter (not melted!)
2 cloves minced garlic
1 tsp Italian herb seasoning

The Process:
Make sure your butter is well softened. With the warm days I've been having, it didn't take long. Mix all ingredients in a small bowl with a fork until well combined. You can use it immediately, but the flavors enhance after it's been mixed a while. I like to line the top half of my butter dish with cling wrap, scoop the garlic butter into it, and chill it in the fridge. After it has hardened, you can pop it right out of the dish and it's stick-shaped and ready for slicing.

You should store it in your refrigerator. It keeps for quite a while, just like regular butter.

My #1 use for it is to make ridiculously good garlic bread. I've been slicing up a baguette, buttering up a few slices, and toasting them in my toaster oven at 400 degrees for 5-6 minutes. That's plenty for just my husband and I to enjoy... or to just make as a snack. For superior garlic bread, use a sourdough loaf.

However, if you're feeding a crowd, you can do it in the oven. Slice the baguette, but without cutting through all the way to the bottom- leaving about 1/2 an inch attached. In each slit, place a generous pat of garlic butter. Wrap the whole loaf loosely in tin foil and bake at 250 degrees for 8-10 minutes.

All this talk of garlic bread is making my hungry for some spaghetti and meatballs. Looks like I know what I'll be making for dinner!

It's a Bird! It's a Plane! No! It's Beer Bread!

   I recently made some bread from my Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day book. There is a plethora of recipes in there, but one kind of bread is conspicuously missing from their book- beer bread. I love beer, and I love the beers that the fall season brings- the Octoberfests and the pumpkin ales.

   After a little trial and error, I finally came up with a modification to their basic recipe. Most beer breads I've seen are soft loafs that you pour into a loaf pan and bake. But I'm in the market for a crusty loaf, akin to the ones I often make. I started with that recipe for Basic Bread to make my modifications.

   The first batch I tried by replacing half the water with beer. Conveniently, a 12 oz bottle of beer is 1 1/2 cups of liquid- precisely half of the water in the original recipe. I also reduced the yeast by half. The beer flavor was very mild in the resulting bread, and it didn't rise quite as much as it should have. This means I needed more beer, and a little bit more yeast. Another batch was made with these changes, and the result was breaded beery goodness.

Beer Bread
adapted from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day
makes 4, 1lb loafs

What You'll Need:
2, 12oz room temp bottles of beer, I used and Irish Red.
2 tsp granulated yeast
1 Tbs salt
6 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
a large container, preferably with a lid

The Process:
   When selecting a beer, just remember this is where you'll get almost all the flavor. If paring it with a meal, choose a beer that will go well with your meal. I chose an Irish Red because I like that style a lot. Also keep in mind that the beer has to be room temp in order to get the yeast to activate correctly.

Basic No-Knead Bread Recipe

   One of my favorite small pleasures in life is taking a bite of really good bread, particularly if I've used it to sop up a little something from my dinner plate. Buying a nice loaf of crusty bread, though, can be quite hit or miss. My local grocery store wouldn't know a baguette if one hit them in the face and sang Frère Jacques- their "baguettes" are a soft and bland.

A nice, big boule.

   But I don't buy that bread anymore because I learned how to make my own at home. I tried a lot of recipes and made a lot of mistakes. Then, I received a wonderful book called Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day as a gift. I learned a ton about baking bread and why my previous trials had turned out poorly. I use their Master Recipe quite often for a basic bread that's good for any occasion.

   I highly recommend their book for those of you who are looking to try baking bread at home but aren't sure where to start. There are tons of different kinds of bread for you to try, too. It doesn't take very long to make the dough, and there is no kneading necessary!

Basic Bread
from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day
makes 4, 1lb loafs

What You'll Need:
   3 cups lukewarm water
   1 Tbs granulated yeast
   1 Tbs salt
   6 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
   a large container, preferably with a lid

The Process:
    Put your warm water, yeast, and salt into your container. Dump all the flour in at once and mix well. I prefer to do this step with a wooden spoon, but if you have a fancy mixer with dough hook, feel free to go that route. Once all the flour is incorporated, you'll be left with a wet, sticky dough. This is exactly what you want. Loosely cover with your lid (or plastic wrap in a pinch) and let rise for two hours.

Slow Cooked Chicken Pot Pie

My neck of the woods has thoroughly fallen into autumn. For over a week, we've had 75 degree days and 50 degree evenings, just absolutely wonderful weather that makes you yearn for a hearty dish. Tonight I just had to make something in the spirit of this weather. I have quite a bit of chicken on hand, so a chicken pot pie was an easy choice.

But I didn't really want to heat up my whole place by turning on the oven to bake one. Where do I always turn in times of temperature crisis like this? To my trusty crock pot, of course. This is a really easy way to make that savory pot pie dish without using your oven, or having to worry about over baking a crust (as I am known to do).

My vegetables were carrots, peas, lima beans, and potatoes.

Slow Cooked Chicken Pot Pie
makes 6 servings

What You'll Need:
 4 boneless chicken breasts, thawed
 2 cans cream of chicken soup
 1 cup sliced celery (I'm not a fan, so I traded it for a diced potato instead)
 1 medium onion, diced
 2 cloves garlic, mince
 1 bay leaf
 1/2 tsp marjoram
 1/4 tsp sage
 1/2 tsp thyme
 1/2 tsp rosemary
 1/2 tsp black pepper
 salt to taste (I added 1/2 tsp)
 2 cups of cut fresh veggies- carrots, peas, corn, etc OR a 1lb frozen bag mixed veggies
 6 biscuits, either prepackaged or homemade (I'm posting a recipe for some soon)

Great-Grandmom's Georgia Cornbread

My grandmother grew up in Georgia, as did much of her family before her. When I was growing up, she lived in NJ near us, but her mother still lived in the same house my grandmother grew up in. On the occasions we were able to visit, my great-grandmother would make cornbread for us. Before or since, I have never tasted better.

Unfortunately, she passed away a few years ago and her cornbread recipe went with her. My grandmother attests that she made it from memory without too much measuring and a lot of just knowing what's "right." After consulting my mother and grandmother, I think I was able to piece together a recipe very similar to hers.

They agreed on most points- that she used yellow cornmeal, regular flour, and, most importantly, bacon grease. That last part I couldn't forget, she had a vat of it in the kitchen- ready for anything. They, however, disagreed as to her use of buttermilk. After having tried it both with and without, I concluded that buttermilk is definitely the way to go.

Great-Grandmom's Georgia Cornbread
makes 8 generous slices

What You'll Need:
    1 cup yellow cornmeal
    1 cup all-purpose flour
    1/2 cup sugar
    1 cup buttermilk
    1/2 cup bacon grease (or melted butter, if you prefer)
    2 eggs
    3/4 teaspoon baking soda
    1 teaspoon salt

Healthy Pumpkin Bread Batter for Muffins or Loafs

This is a nice healthy recipe using one of my favorite switcheroos- substituting the oil for applesauce. Making pumpkin bread is probably my favorite way to use that trick. The bread comes out more moist than with oil, in addition to being tastier. I feel that the apples enhance the rest of the flavors in the bread.

This recipe is adapted from the one my mother made when I was growing up. I have many fond memories of eating slices of this bread, warmed with a little butter, on Christmas morning. She still makes it when we come to visit around the holidays.

Healthy Pumpkin Bread
makes 24 cupcake sized muffins

What You'll Need:
1, 16 oz. can pumpkin
1 1/2 cups sugar
2/3 cup applesauce (unsweetened)
2 tsp vanilla
4 eggs
3 cup flour
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup walnuts or raisins (optional, not calculated into Points+)

Easy Homemade Pizza

Woo what a weekend! I headed over to the Reason Rally that was held in DC. It was quite an experience, and the turn out was fantastic despite the downpour. I had a great time, made some new friends, and I even got a schooled in my cutting techniques.

I will have to go further in depth about it at some point, but when I cut stuff up, it isn't pretty. I just sort of slap the knife around until the poor vegetable is butchered to approximate size I wanted. It's sad. But this weekend, I learned to mince up a garlic clove the way cooking professionals intended.

So, now that I'm feeling pretty guilty about my cutting skills... so here's some pizza! No cutting involved. Pizza is a wonderful thing that way.

This pizza really doesn't need a recipe, because it's the lazy-man's homemade pizza. The crust is store-bought flatbread. I used lavash for this one, which is a popular Middle Eastern flatbread. Trader Joe's kindly stocks it. You could make your own sauce, but it wouldn't be easy pizza if you did. I used a sauce from, you guessed it, Trader Joe's. I can't help it, it's a 4 minute walk from my apartment so I shop there often.

Just make sure you go easy on the sauce, a little goes a long way and too much will make it soggy. Top with whatever cheese strikes your fancy. Preheat your oven and baking stone to 425, and bake for about 6 minutes until the crust is crisp. Dig in!

Why You Need A Baking Stone

Two years ago, I got really into baking bread at home. Not a soft pumpkin loaf or the bread machine stuff, but genuine, crusty loaves.  I tried tons of recipes. Some of them were good, but most were subpar. Even with the good ones, I was never totally impressed with the results. The taste was usually fine, but the texture and the nice crunchy outside didn't turn out quite right.

Then everything changed when holidays rolled around. My mother gifted me a copy of "Artisan Bread in Five Minutes A Day" by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe François. My relationship with bread evolved into an all-out affair as soon as I cracked open that volume. Aside from having fantastic (and simple) recipes for great bread, it contained the single best advice I have ever gotten for making fabulous bread: get a baking stone.

Wonderfully grimy, isn't it? Just burned bits of cheese, sauce, etc.

I'd never heard of such a beast before. I looked them up and found so many kinds. The one I ultimately bought came from Williams-Sonoma (called a pizza stone). I chose this one because its square shape makes it large enough for baguettes, it's thick enough to avoid cracking, and it came with a lifetime guarantee. This stone was more expensive ($45) than most of the others, but it seemed likely to last me far longer than the cheaper alternatives.

Now, I don't just use the stone for crusty bread, because it is also great for pizzas, calzones, and flatbreads. I make pizzas at home all the time now, pizzas that are so much healthier than the delivery version. The baking stone is great for these things because it is what gives bread and pizza that thin, crispy outside, but chewy inside.

Red Lobster-Style Cheddar Biscuits

Being on a budget can be no fun at times. Hubby-to-be and I have a wedding to pay for in less than two months (I can't believe it's almost here), so we've been keeping a tight leash on our finances. That means eating out less, which is just as good for our budget as it is for our health a lot of times. However, every time I see a Red Lobster commercial, my mouth starts to water at the thought of those infamous Cheddar Bay Biscuits.

It came time to try and make my own. Ages ago I heard you could easily make your own using Bisquick mix, cheddar cheese, and garlic. This weekend I couldn't take it anymore and had to try to make some of my own. All told, they came out nearly as delicious as the originals, except I should have added more garlic. The recipe below includes the additional garlic.

Tasty, tasty biscuits.

Almost Cheddar Bay Biscuits

What you need:

 2 cups Bisquick mix
2/3 cup milk (I used buttermilk because I had some leftover)
1/2 stick butter, cubed
2/3 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1/2 tsp ground garlic