Recipe of the Week: French Bread

While growing up, my family wasn't very excited about cooking. But every now and then, the smell of cooking food would permeate every room of the home and send me running into the kitchen. Often, this smell would come from my father making bread.

He tried various recipes, and at one point even had some sourdough starter taking-up a semi-permanent residence in our refrigerator. But usually the bread had a hard crunchy crust, with a warm soft interior that just called for gobs of butter.

These memories have stayed with me. And late last year, I found myself trying to bake bread for the first time. It took a few tries before I was happy with the result. After all, getting a crunchy crust on a french bread is hard unless you have a professional-grade oven with steam injectors!  But the recipe below resulted in a tasty and tender bread that wasn't overly dense, and it had an almost perfect crust.

Make perfect bread with a pizza stone like this from Sur La Table.


First, there are some tips you should be aware of:

#1) If you want an awesome crunchy crust, steam is your friend. If placing the loaf on a pizza stone, or an upside down cast-iron skillet or baking  sheet, you'll want to place 1/2 cup of water in an open oven-safe container (i.e. pie tin) AND throw 1/2 cup of water onto the bottom of the oven once the bread is in the oven.  The water thrown into the oven flash-steams, while the water in the container evaporates over time keeping the oven more humid.

#2) Use a pizza stone, cast iron dutch or an upside-down cast iron skillet.You want something that is thick, retains and radiates heat. If you don’t have one of these, don’t worry, just use a good-quality, thick baking sheet -- upside down

Click "read more" to get the recipe

Turkey!!

Earlier this month I posted my Thanksgiving Turkey recipe -- and here is the product of that recipe.

As you can see in the "Before" image, you have a turkey all coated in baconey goodness. In the "After" image you have that turkey fresh out of the oven minus the bacon which I ate removed about 90 minutes before the turkey was finished. YUM!!!

I should note, that I modified the recipe slightly -- I also placed butter (seasoned with rosemary, thyme, and sage) under the skin. THAT really added some flavor.

Hope you had a happy Thanksgiving!

-LNF

Recipe Friday: Roasted Garlic Butter

This week before I made an Italian dinner, I spent an hour making the house smell like garlic. Below, you'll find my recipe for Roasted Garlic Butter. It's a quick and easy way to make gourmet style food, with a limited budget. I recommend you serve this with a high quality crusty loaf of bread; and that before serving, you pre-slice the bread, spread this butter between the slices, wrap in aluminum foil, and then heat in the oven so that the butter has melted.

Ingredients:
1 head elephant garlic (or 2 heads of regular garlic)
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons chopped (fresh) rosemary
Salt (sea salt if possible)
2 sticks butter (room temperature)
1 loaf of crusty bread (sourdough, italian, french, etc)

Directions:
1) Cut the top off of the garlic
2) Place the heads of garlic on a sheet of aluminum foil
3) With the cut side up, pour olive oil over garlic
4) then add 1 tablespoon rosemary to top of garlic
5) wrap in aluminum foil, and bake at 350 for one hour
6) After hour, remove from oven and let cool for a few minutes
7) Once cool enough to touch, squeeze garlic so that roasted bulbs empty into bowl, whith sliced sticks of butter
8) Mix with butter. Butter will melt
9) Add One tablespoon of rosemary, and salt to taste
10)Place in refrigerator, and let cool
11) Serve with bread. (See above)
12) Enjoy!

Recipe Friday: Hamburgers

Today is the first day of Spring, and I can think of no better way to welcome spring than to light some charcoal in the barbecue and start grilling. Over the years, I've played with hamburger recipes, and this is my favorite. Sure, you could buy some pre-made patties at the store and slap them on the grill, but you're not taking full advantage of what you could be eating between those buns. After all, how many times do you get to put butter INTO the meat you cook??

So, as a public service, I offer the following recipe. :) Happy Grilling!

Ingredients:
1 lb of hamburger meat
1/4 Teaspoon fresh ground pepper
1/4 Teaspoon seasoned salt
1/4 Teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 Teaspoon onion salt
4 dashes of Worcestershire Sauce
3 slices of butter

Directions:
1) Place meat into large bowl
2) Add pepper, seasoned salt, garlic powder and onion salt
3) Thoroughly mix with hands
4) And Worcestershire Sauce, and mix again
5) Roll into three equal size balls
6) Make a hole 3/4 of way into burger with a finger
7) Place butter into hole, and press meat into burger patty, closing hole.
8) Place onto grill and cook to desired temperature, turning infrequently
9) Place cooked patties onto toasted and buttered buns, serve with favorite condiments.
10) Enjoy!