Greek Week Presents... Pitas!

Greek Week continues on the Castle Farm Cookbook! To those just joining us, we are having a week long celebration to mark our blog's first birthday.

No Greek feast would be complete without an appetizer of pita and dips. We made pita pocketsa while ago, but we have never shared our favorite pita recipe with you.

Once upon a time there was... Brown Sugar Raisin Bread

Welcome back!  Today is the third day of Breakfast Week at the Castle Farm Cookbook.  Today we are making the most complicated recipe of the week, Brown Sugar Raisin Bread!  This one definitely takes some time, but a lot of the time is just sitting around while the yeast does the real work. Don't let the yeast and number of ingredients scare you away - we promise it's not that bad!  Plus, when you are done you will have 2 loaves of homemade raisin bread.  We found this recipe at Williams-Sonoma's website.

Once upon a time there was... Baguettes!

Today, I'll be flying solo and making some delicious French baguettes. Cornelius isn't helping because - let's put this nicely - he doesn't like to wait so long to bake good bread. He'll be back later with a recipe that I am not participating in. A nice home-baked loaf of bread is one of the best things in the world. And this recipe makes 2 loaves! The recipe comes from our Good Housekeeping cookbook. It may not be as exciting as our Beer Bread, but it still is wonderful.

Once upon a time there was... Pumpkin Bread

While we were making our Thanksgiving Mashed Potatoes, we had some extra time on our hands, since the potatoes like to take their time to boil. We also had some extra pumpkin on our hands after making Penelope's favorite pumpkin pie. So we decided to take all these things we had in our hands and turn them into pumpkin bread! We found a wonderful recipe for Pumpkin Gingerbread on AllRecipes.com.

ingredients

3 c. sugar

1 c. vegetable oil

4 eggs

2/3 c water

1 (15 oz) can pumpkin puree

2 tsp ginger

1 tsp allspice

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp ground cloves

3 1/2 c flour

2 tsp baking soda

1 1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking powder

instructions

1. prep: preheat oven to 350. grease two 9x5 loaf pans.

Cal's tip: Count your eggs, sugar and pigs to make sure you have enough before starting.

2. combine sugar, oil, and eggs. beat until smooth.

Cal's tip: This will not look appetizing. Just trust us.

3. add water and beat until well blended

4. stir in pumpkin, ginger, allspice, cinnamon and cloves. The spices are the most important part of this recipe, and should be treated with respect.

5. in a seperate bowl, combine flour, baking powder and soda, and salt. Add dry ingredients to pumpkin mixture and blend until just combined. Divide batter between pans.

Cal's tip: At this point, it will be extremely difficult to resist the smell of this batter. Make sure to restrain your pigs.

7. Bake until a toothpick comes out clean, about an hour.

Cal's tip: Once your loaves are secured in the oven, you can release your pigs and enjoy licking the bowl together.

ta-da! its pumpkin bread!

And it tastes even yummier once its cooked!

We have been eating this loaf for our breakfast for 3 days now and it is still just as delicious as the first day. We highly recommend using your extra time and pumpkins to make this bread.

Moo!

Once upon a time there was... Stew and beer bread

Frequent readers will understand our passion for alcoholic beverages. I especially enjoy a good beer.

I also like to bake breads. And who doesn't love a good stew? So today we have created two beer-saturated meals, Whole Wheat Beer Bread and Beef and Carrot Stew with Dark Beer (from Epicurious). It is important to note that when cooking multiple things in one kitchen, you should study the recipes side by side for any possible ingredient-chopping efficiencies, and to get the timing just right.

The recipes, and us, side by side.

When we thought about the timing for making the two together, it was as if someone had already done this. But unless they were a cow and a pig, we're not impressed. Yeast breads have a bit of rising time, so we start with the bread. For equipment, you need an approximately 9" x 4.25" greased loaf pan (ours wasn't quite the right size and it turned out great).


Ingredients:

1 package active yeast

2 tbsp honey

10 oz warm beer (we used Rasputin Imperial Stout)

2 1/4 c whole wheat flour

1 1/2 c bread flour -- separated

1 1/2 tbsp butter -- melted

2 tsp salt

1 ea egg

1 tbsp water

Instructions
1. Activate the yeast. Follow package directions, usually combining with hot water and some sugar.

2. Combine with whole wheat flour, 1 1/4 cup bread flour, and 2 teaspoons salt. Add butter and honey to warm beer and, with mixer running, pour beer into dry ingredients. As the dough forms swap paddle attachment for dough hook.


3. Knead for six minutes at medium speed. The dough should be slightly sticky but should clear the bowl. Add additional flour if needed. Dump dough onto a floured board and knead another minute or two until dough is fairly smooth (it won't be as smooth as a white bread) and resilient.


4. Allow to rest 5 to 10 minutes. (Good time to take a break yourself!)


5.Shape dough into a ball and place seam-side down in greased bowl. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let rise until doubled in bulk -- 60 to 90 minutes.

(Note: this is when we did most of the work on the stew, but I will continue with the rest of the bread recipe first. Cornelius gets confused when we talk about two recipes at once.)

6.Punch down dough and turn out onto floured board. Lightly knead dough and form into a flattened ball. Allow to rest five to 10 minutes.

7. Shape dough into a rectangle that will fit in a 9" x 4.25" greased loaf pan. Cover and allow to rise until doubled in bulk. Heat oven to 425F.

8. In small bowl, beat together egg and water. Brush loaf or rolls with egg mixture and bake on middle oven rack. Ours was perfect in exactly 25 minutes, but of course, ovens vary.


Now, for the stew. As you might imagine, I don't eat beef, so Cornelius was in charge of this recipe.

Ingredients

2 tablespoons peanut oil

1 3-pound boneless beef chuck roast, cut into 1 1/2-inch chunks

2 cups chopped onions

4 garlic cloves, smashed

4 teaspoons chopped fresh sage and/or rosemary (we had some fresh sage, but dried rosemary. It's all to taste)

2 tablespoons tomato paste

2 tablespoons all purpose flour

1 12-ounce bottle dark beer (again, we used Rasputin Imperial Stout)

1 14-ounce can low-salt beef broth

1 pound baby carrots (use a bag)

Chef's tip: Cornelius and I recommend that for a recipe with a lot of ingredients requiring chopping, especially when you have other dishes that will need attention, get all the prep work done at once.


Instructions
1. Heat oil in heavy large pot over medium-high heat.

2. Sprinkle beef with salt and pepper. Working in batches, add to pot and sauté until browned, about 8 minutes per batch. Transfer to bowl.

3. Add onions, garlic, and herbs to pot; sprinkle with salt and pepper. Reduce heat to medium; sauté until onions begin to soften, about 5 minutes.

4. Add tomato paste and flour; stir 1 minute. Add beer; stir until thick and smooth, scraping up browned bits, about 2 minutes.

5. Add broth, then beef with any juices; bring to simmer.

6.Cover partially, reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer 45 minutes. Add carrots; simmer partially covered until beef and carrots are tender, stirring occasionally, about 45 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

The result of these two recipes is a delicious loaf of bread,


and what they tell me was a fantastic stew.


Cornelius says that when we make this again, we need to add more (maybe double) the liquid to the stew. Our stove tends to boil broth quite easily - plus it was on top of a baking loaf of bread - so we may have lost too much beer-y goodness on this attempt.

Other beers will substitute well in both recipes, but use something hearty. Moo!