Dahlia Bakery- Cook the book for November

November is here! Wait, it's gone.

The holiday season can sometimes seem to fly by since everyone is trying to pack in parties, baking, vacation with family, not to mention shopping for presents (or making presents)! J.K. and Angela stepped outside the hustle bustle one day to enjoy our simple lunch inspired by our Cook the Book for November, The Dahlia Bakery Cookbook: Sweetness in Seattle.

Our goal was a warming and nutritious lunch to sustain us through an afternoon of Chocolate making. We were ready to try out our new silicone molds. The only soup in the Bakery book, Tomato Soup, uses ingredients you can find in the pantry! So it was an obvious choice to add grilled cheese sandwiches to the menu as well. Angela had to buy some canned tomatoes (she's so spoiled by California produce, she usually uses fresh or none), but everything else was at hand. In fact, Angela was a bit skeptical of the recipe, it seemed so simple. However, it was delicious! Next time Angela is visiting a relative and we don't know what to do for dinner...Dahlia Tomato Soup!

 We skipped the croutons since we were having grilled cheese. J.K. made a sourdough rye in her bread machine, using yeast and Ready Sourdough from Seitenbacher. At first the dough looked much too wet, but the finished loaf, while not very tall, was very tasty. We ended up making one sandwich and splitting it. We were good and resisted the bacon (and avocado) suggested as a variation recipe, although J.K. did ask, "Did you bring some?" when Angela asked about the recipe. This sandwich recipe calls for shredded cheese, and due to that, the cheese did fall out a bit on the way to the pan, so maybe we'd form it into a loose patty instead of just piling it on the bread and tomato on next time? Lunch was rounded out with a nice salad dressed with Balasmic vinegar (presented in a vintage bowl).

Tomato Soup and Grilled Cheese (with Tomato) Sandwiches

Seitenbacher products make tasty bread (for the grilled cheese sandwiches)

While we didn't get a lot of pictures from lunch, JK was ahead of the game and ready to show off her lovely new baking pan featuring the Chocolate Banana Bread recipe from the Dahlia Cookbook. They're a perfect match to make a lovely and delicious hostess gift. She also gives a picture tutorial on making custard, just add ice cream maker.

Creme Anglaise

Strained over the chopped chocolatae

Melted Magic, ready to go in the ice cream maker.

Created perfect frozen custard.

J.K.'s prepared new loaf pan

The pan was just the right size for the recipe

The strip around the pan kept the top of the loaf even.

And the banana bread unmolded perfectly.

Dessert was much later, featuring the chocolate chunk banana bread (Very good) from the cookbook, served with Chocolate Frozen Custard (Belgian style). That Ice Cream maker is getting a work out this fall. Thanks to Cook the Book from August for making J.K. get it out of the mothballs!

Chocolate Banana Bread with Chocolate Frozen Custard

Meg from Grow and Resist and Briggs from OhBriggsy have inspired a lot of good cooking this year and introduced us to some new cookbook authors. It makes us feel like next year we need to cook our own books, the ones we buy that inspire us but then sit on the shelf for a while waiting to be cracked open, spilled on and loved. One more cookbook is on hold for Tea Time at the Library... check in next month (or maybe look under the tree) for the fruits of our labors.

Happy Holidays from Tea Time!!

Cook The Book July: The Bread

The July Cook the Book selection, Maricel Presilla's Gran Cocina Latina, doesn't have any recipes in my style of dessert-making. I requested her book The New Taste of Chocolate on July 4, but the library still has not been able to locate one of its four copies. So I made Cuban Coconut Bread (pp. 593-4), which turned out to be rolls. (Angela specially requested them for our cook the book lunch!)

I weighed the flour in my newest gadget–a measuring cup scale. I've been using it as a regular scale, but I could just tell it "flour" and it would tell me how many cups, according to the weight. That would be useful if your recipe doesn't give weights and you don't have enough dry measuring cups. Bread is very forgiving, though, so if you don't have a scale, you'll be fine measuring your flour. If your dough is too wet, add flour. If it's too dry, add water. Just remember, a little goes a long way, so don't add too much at a time.

 It was easy to assemble the rest of the ingredients.

Only 7 Ingredients

Mix the wet and dry ingredients separately, then combine them.

Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients.

Whisk the yeast into the wet ingredients.

When it bubbles (about 10 minutes), it's ready.

The directions told me to mix the dough with my fingertips. That was a huge mistake. It was a sticky mess, and it took me longer to get the dough off my hands than it did to mix it.

So I scraped it into my trusty bread machine, and let it do the kneading.

The bread machine has a warm up period before starting the kneading cycle, so for the second kneading I used my stand mixer.

Both risings were voluminous, and took about half the time suggested by the recipe.

The dough plopped right out of the oiled bowl, onto a piece of silicone paper.

The recipe said to make nine 4-ounce balls of dough. I got eight, and the last one was "only" 3 7/8 ounces.  I think that's because I used the bread machine for the kneading and didn't have to work more flour in to keep the dough from sticking to a board.

A final rise and the rolls are ready to bake.

Top of Rolls After 12 Minutes

Bottom of Rolls After 12 Minutes

Fully Baked Rolls
Brown and Crusty!

I had to make these the night before, so they weren't crusty when we ate them, but they were still delicious. This was a lot of work, and took a lot of time. I'm going to use the rest of my coconut milk in a bread machine recipe. The recipe says that grilling the bread is the ideal way to go when making these rolls, so please try out the recipe and let us know if the coconut flavor shines through when they're cooked that way?

Chocolate for lunch! Cook the Book July

If you know one thing about the Tea Time Adventurers it should be that we Love Chocolate*. So lunch this month shouldn't be a surprise. I will admit that this months tome is the most daunting one we've perused for Cook the Book thus far. First of all,  Gran Cocina Latina: The Food of Latin America is big (even the name). Oversized and Thick. This plus the fact that the print is sepia tone (not a sharp contrasting black) and there are few full color photos meant I had to delve deeper to find recipes that spoke to me. But they are there!!

You'll see from our photos below that we ate well and heartily. Our drink from Costa Rica (Costa Rican Hibiscus Wine p339), our meat from Argentina (Short Ribs in Black Sauce with Chocolate and Cacao p713), San Salvador style pupusas (Basic Pupusas p402), Rolls inspired by tropical flavors (Garifuna Coconut Bread p593/4), and a cocktail "dessert" from Mexico (Spicy Prickly Pear Cocktail p376). Stephanie rounded out our meal with a Shrimp Louie salad and Gabi brought some wine. The four of us talked and ate, savoring both the meal and each other's company.

Ribby Ribs Ribs. Chocolate Ribs! Lots of tender meat with rich flavorful sauce perfect for dipping.

HIbiscus wine

Coconut bread rolls baked, not grilled.

Frying up the cheese Pupusas--second batch

I learned several things cooking these recipes. Highlights below:

1. Meat can be expensive! (but there was lots of leftovers for lunches)
2. Pupusas fry better after the batter has set up for a while. (I made the rest of the batch after our meal had ended and the rested batter did not leak the cheese like the first go round.)
2a. Latin America makes some good cheese. (Also, I am glad to have the big bag of Masa, because making pupusas is so simple, just add cheese/veggies, fry, eat!)
3. The Hibiscus wine recipe will go in my recipe file so I can use it to mull my wines and make sangrias! (This recipe is a keeper!!)
4. I have now "mastered" the cactus plant as food. Next challenge vegetable please! (Last month we ate the leaf and this month the fruit as dessert.)
5. I like an unknown cookbook to have photos. (This seems not to apply when I buy them from library book sales or thrift stores though–perhaps it is a time frame connundrum?)

Lunch plated pre salad.

I was particularly excited to try this Prickly Pear "cocktail," but I decided to serve it as dessert instead of an appetizer (Maricel E. Presilla, the cookbook author, suggests serving this with a shot of aged tequila.) I felt like it needed a little jazz added in order to pass the dessert muster, so I garnished the martini glass with fresh ripe blueberries and a dollop of honeyed greek yogurt. The sweetness of the blueberries and the smooth dairy contrasted perfectly with the slightly spicy, slightly crunchy, and very limey cactus fruit. This dessert would be great for a special occasion as it's simple to prepare, but looks beautiful. If you wanted to add a Mexican cookie I think it would be a tasty addition too.

Dessert 2.0

Dessert

We've become the ladies who lunch, thanks to Cook the Book. Are you ready to get together with a group of friends over food? Do you plan potlucks or take turns hosting the meals? You can join us in cooking the book next month if you need some food for thought and inspiration!

Welcome!

Grab some salad and a glass of wine.

*Although considering our recent eating habits, perhaps we should rename our blog "Anything Fried with Cheese is Good" Opinions?

Street Food Lunch--June Cook the Book

This month Cook the Book parent bloggers Ohbriggsy and Meg over at Grow and Resist gave us the inspiration to dive into Street Food by Susan Feniger. J.K. and I Love street food, hence our attendance at the SF Street Food Festival every year. When I picked up the book from the library this month and paged through it, I discovered a wide variety of cooking styles with great pictures to distract you. As always, I was instantly attracted to a few recipes, but postponed making them for a bit. I admire how some bloggers start cooking day 1 from the book, but it always takes me a while to decide what to make.

One recipe did catch my eye, something I thought would be perfect to take along and trade at the SF Food Swap. It was easy to get down to business and make some "Earl Grey Tea Dust" inspired by Ginger Dust (p209) I also made "Rooibos Dust" and the real deal using ginger as well. I also made Heirloom Tomatoes with Garlic and Balsamic Vinagrette (p48) as my swap potluck dish. It was a hit!

Potluck Gold!

Earl Grey Dust

Both of these recipes were simple and adaptable. In fact I felt that way about all the dishes I made from Street Food this month. It would be easy to change up the recipes I cooked to accommodate what was on hand in the pantry. However, it was more fun to plan lunch and shop for the "special" ingredients. Stephanie, J. K. and I set the date, and decided on the menu.

 When I went to buy the cactus paddles, I couldn't resist getting Mexican cheeses and sour cream as well!

Welcome to Lunch!
Cook the Book Menu:
Cactus Rellenos with Corn Salad and Arbol Chili Salsa
toppings of Mexican sour cream, avocado, pickled jicama
Canton Ginger Kick Cocktails (with ginger syrup)
Danish Black Licorice and Cherry Biscotti with Buttermilk Koldskal

Ready to eat!

The recipe for Cactus Rellenos was my choice for lunch because I have wondered what/how people cook them ever since I moved to SF and saw them for sale in the Mission at the produce bodegas. During our lunch, Stephanie said that many people use them as a vegetable. They cook them the same as peppers or squash. Considering you have to scrape all the pointy stuff off to use them I'll just keep on eating peppers instead, but now I feel ready to face the cowboy trail, able to live off the desert land (as long as I have a sharp knife to clean the spines off my food-although I bet they'd burn off if I had fire).

I made the Corn Salad the day before, I thought the dressing would meld with the corn overnight. However, when I tasted it after tossing them together it was simply delicious. It was just as tasty the next day, but I think this dressing could make any veggie salad a hit!

Corn Salad- corn with a dressing of cilantro, salt, oil, onion, and lemon juice

I picked up the dried A chilis the morning of the meal when I biked over to the mission to grab the cactus paddles. That was also when I spied the Monterey Jack and Mexican Sour Cream. They even had a bag of already "shredded" Cojita cheese. Score! I roasted the tomatoes over the open flame instead of under the broiler, I think that it uses less energy that way. Now you're cooking with gas! I took 90% of the seeds out of the chili's. It had the perfect tiny bit of heat for our trio, but if you're into the spicy, just leave in the majority of the seeds in order to burn up your taste buds. This effortless salsa also made it on the short list for swap ideas. I mean, I have Plenty of dried chilis left for another batch. They're chili'in in the freezer right now.

A nice flavorful salsa, a tiny bit spicy.

Full disclosure: I have been craving Jalapeno Poppers for a while now. They've just been on my mind. Not enough to go someplace fast food and Pay for them, but enough that I think they influenced my recipe choice this month. Because as Stephanie pointed out at lunch, "You can't go wrong when something is stuffed with cheese and fried." Such truth. I appreciated learning a new way to fry as well, first rolling the relleno in flour then immersing it into beaten eggs. It wasn't even that messy since I rolled all the rellenos in the flour first, then dipped those in the eggs to fry as needed. The main difference between my interpretation and Susan's recipe is that I didn't make "sandwiches" from the cactus. I kindof tried to "roll" them. Which ended up meaning they were smaller in size and in the end, I think that was good, because they were painless to dip in the egg batter and also cooked faster.

Fry little Rellenos, Fry!

Golden cactus "poppers". Just what I was wanting.

I also made a cocktail to go along with our meal. It's a pretty strong drink! Since I didn't have any ice made, we ended up adding water so we would all be sitting in our chairs by the end of the meal (instead of under the table). This cocktail used the Ginger syrup, and I think it would be nice with Ginger Dust as well.

The force is strong in this cocktail.

Money shot! Cactus Rellenos with Corn Salad and Arbol Chili Salsa (p70-73)

Plus, of course, Dessert. Brought to us by the letters J and K. You can learn about the Licorice and Cherry Biscotti with Buttermilk Koldskal (p180-181) here. Suffice to say the soup could be a great summer meal starter, totally refreshing. Plus the biscotti (even though they weren't Matzo toffee) were pretty darn tasty with or without licorice.

That's a lot of dipping sauce!

Dessert!

* Angela *REALLY* lobbied for J.K. to make matzo candy, starting asap when Angela saw the recipe in the cookbook. But since she swapped for pretzel toffee at the food swap it became less as urgent. Plus J.K. made her some biscottis w/o licorice, phew.