Italian Sloppy Joes

I had leftover sloppy joe sauce in my fridge and I was trying to figure out what to do with it. I came across this idea from The Pioneer Woman. This worked perfectly to use up our leftovers but I think next time I'll use homemade spaghetti sauce instead.

I used white homemade garlic bread as the base which made it taste amazing. I just put some butter and garlic salt on the bread and put it under the broiler for a few minutes. Then, I topped with the meaty sloppy joe sauce and sprinkled some mozzarella cheese on top. Then I put it back under the broiler for a couple of minutes to let the cheese melt. It was a really quick meal. I think I'm going to work on freezing some homemade spaghetti sauce this week. My husband has been asking me to do it for months and it's just one of those things I haven't gotten around to. Maybe I'll do it over the holiday weekend since he'll be leaving me for a boys trip.

Homemade Bread Bowls with Potato Soup

I came across a homemade bread bowl recipe on Pretty Providence and I have been wanting to try it for a while. Well, now that fall has come and gone, I finally decided to make them. The recipe came from Tastes Better From Scratch

Bread bowls:
Ingredients:

2 cups + 4 Tbsp warm water

2 packages of active dry yeast (about 2 Tbsp)

1/2 cup butter, melted

2 Tbsp sugar

3 tsp salt

6 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

In a large bowl add warm water and sprinkle in yeast. Set aside to “proof” or get foamy, about 10 minutes.  Add melted butter, sugar and salt and mix until combined.  Gradually add flour.  Knead with your mixer or by hand for about 5 minutes until dough is smooth and elastic. (you could do this by hand if you weren’t using a mixer, but it may get a little tiring!). Place in a large greased bowl. Cover, place in warm place and allow to rise until doubled, (about 45 minutes). After first rise punch dough down and form into 6 equal sized balls.  Place dough balls on a greased cookie sheet and lightly cover with plastic wrap. Let rise once more for about 20-30 minutes. DO NOT touch the dough at all during this time. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F and bake for 20-25 minutes, or until golden brown.  Let cool and then cut off the top, remove some of the bread from the inside and fill with your favorite soup! 

This recipe makes 6 bread bowls.

I used two bread bowls for dinner and froze the other four for the next time I need them. 

These rolls are really moist and delicious. When I  was scooping out the middle, I really had to hold myself back from eating it all. The center is the best part!

I made potato soup to go with the bread bowls, but there are so many options. This potato soup recipe came from my brother's cooking class in high school. As you can see, this recipe has gotten quite a bit of  use. I keep it in a plastic sheet protector now. At one point in college, the top right corner actually caught on fire because it was a little to close to the stove. I also thought the recipe was a good place to practice my signature, apparently.

Cream of Potato soup:
Ingredients:
2 medium potatoes, peeled and diced
3 Tbsp margarine
3 Tbsp flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp celery salt
1 Tbsp dried onion
1/4 tsp pepper
2 cups hot milk (2 minutes in the microwave)
grated cheese for garnish

Directions:
Peel and cut up the potatoes into small cubes. Put in small pot with just enough water to cover the potatoes and cook (boil) for 10 minutes or until tender.

Drain the cooked potatoes in the colander and then return them to the small pot. Mash slightly with the potato masher.

In the medium pot melt the margarine on medium heat. Add the onion, salt, celery salt, and pepper. Stir with wire whisk. Add the flour and stir until the flour is absorbed into the margarine mixture.

When the butter begins to melt, put the milk in the microwave. Once the flour gets absorbed into the margarine mixture, if the milk isn't ready, it burns really easily and then you have to start over. This is the hardest part. I would also recommend having the spices and flour already measured out before this step to make it easier.  

Add the hot milk (milk should be heated in microwave for 2 min.) and turn the heat up to medium high or high. Stir constantly with the wire whisk until the milk boils and starts to thicken. Remove from the heat.

Add the potatoes to the milk mixture and stir until well mixed. Serve with cheese on top if desired.

Olive Garden Bread sticks

My sister came to visit us last week and we had a lot of fun! She was supposed to come in September for her birthday but I ended up having a baby the day before her flight was scheduled so we had to postpone it. She comes to visit every summer and I absolutely love it. I always have a long list of things I want to do with her when she comes. This year was a little different since I had a little one but we still got to do quite a bit of stuff. We love to cook together when she comes into town so one of the first things we made was homemade chicken broccoli Alfredo. It was absolutely delicious. We decided to make homemade Olive Garden bread sticks to go with it. They take a little bit of time to rise but the preparation is pretty easy. I got the recipe from Moms Crazy Cooking

Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of the finished product. They were so delicious. I will have to make them again soon and take final pictures of them before they are all gone. 

Ingredients:

2 tbsp granulated sugar
3/4 tsp active dry yeast
1 cup; plus 1 tbsp warm water (105-115 degrees)
3 cups bread flour
1-1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup butter, softened

(use for topping after baking)
2 tbsp butter, melted
1/2 tsp garlic salt

Dissolve the sugar and yeast in the warm water in a small bowl or measuring cup and let the mixture sit for about 5 minutes, or until it becomes foamy on top. If it doesn't get foamy, check to make sure your yeast isn't expired or the water wasn't too hot or too cold. This step is called proofing. If the mixture doesn't get foamy that means that the yeast didn't activate and the bread won't rise if you continue on.

Combine flour and salt in a large bowl. Use the paddle attachment on your stand mixer to mix in the softened butter to the flour. Don't worry if it still looks like flour, you just don't want to see lumps of butter.

Switch to your dough hook and add your foamy yeast mixture to the flour. Combine ingredients and then knead for 10 minutes.

Transfer dough to a lightly greased bowl and cover with a damp towel, let rise for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, it will double in size.

Once doubled, measure out portions to roll into bread sticks. The easiest way to roll is between your palms but you can also roll on the counter or a cutting board.  Place dough on a parchment lined baking sheet, or Pam sprayed baking sheet.

Once all dough is rolled, cover with a damp cloth and let rise for another hour to 1 1/2 hours. Until the dough doubles in size again.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Bake the bread sticks  for 12-14 minutes till golden brown. Remove from oven and add the garlic salt to the melted butter and then brush it over the bread sticks.

Makes 12-13 bread sticks.


We dipped these bread sticks in homemade Alfredo which was delicious! If you want the recipe to homemade Alfredo sauce go here

Half White Half Wheat homemade bread

On Sunday night, two weeks ago, my husband wanted to make bread. Ever since he gave me my Bosch he wants to make bread with me all the time. I absolutely love it! It's so fun to be in the kitchen with him. We have made a few different types of bread now and I wanted to try something with wheat. We found this great recipe at Adventures in Bowersland. This recipe makes two large delicious loaves of bread. When we were baking these loaves we had to move the shelf down in the oven because they were touching the top when we checked on them.The great thing about wheat is it is very filling. One piece of toast and you feel full.

Ingredients:

4 cups whole wheat flour
4 cups white flour or bread flour
4 cups luke-warm water (115 degrees F)
1/3 cup honey
2 tsp active dry yeast
2 tsp sea salt
4 Tbsp butter
olive oil


Mix together 1 cup warm water with the honey and the yeast. Set it aside for about 10 minutes to activate. When the yeast mixture looks all bubbly, you know it is ready. In a large mixing bowl mix the yeast mixture with the other 3 cups of warm water and 4 cups of white or bread flour.  Add 1 cup of whole wheat flour and continue mixing. Stir until the lumps are all out and cover with a damp towel. Set it aside for 30 minutes. The dough will rise slightly.


While you wait melt the butter and set it aside. You want the butter to be cool before you add it to the mixture so it doesn't kill the yeast. Add the butter and salt to the mixture as well as the last 3 cups of whole wheat flour adding just a little at a time. Once you've mixed in all of the flour, roll the dough out onto a well floured surface or turn on med/high if mixing in your KitchenAid or Bosch. When the dough pulls off the side of the bowl you know it is ready. I ended up having to add about 2 cups more flour to get the dough the right consistency. You want to make sure it's not too sticky but you don't want to add too much flour or it will end up really dense. If kneading by hand, knead on a floured counter top for 10-15 minutes adding more flour as needed until it no longer sticks to the counter top. Once you are done kneading it, place some olive oil in a large mixing bowl and put the dough back into the bowl. Put a dash of olive oil on top of the dough and turn it a few times to cover it in oil. Place a damp towel over the bowl and let it rise for about an hour or until it is double in size.

Once it has risen, you can punch the center of the dough ball to get out all of the air bubbles. Cut the dough into two pieces and roll each piece out either on the counter top or in your hands to get the rest of the air bubbles out. Then, shape your dough balls into loaves. Place the dough balls into two greased bread pans. Cover the bread pans with a damp towel again and let it rise for 30-45 minutes. This is the last time, I promise!

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees while the dough is rising in the loaf pans. The dough should almost double in size. Bake for about 40 minutes or longer if you want a darker crust.

When the bread comes out of the oven, place the loaves on a cooling rack. I like to put mine on the side and then the cooling rack makes lines in the bread and they make perfect slices if you cut along them.

On a side note, the day after we baked this bread my water broke and our little baby decided that it was time to come. He came 4 weeks early. When we got home from the hospital 4 days later everything in our fridge was old and spoiled so this bread was awesome to have. We had amazing friends and family who helped us out with meals, cleaning, diapers, premie clothing, etc. I can't thank them enough! We love this new little bundle of joy!

Cinnamon Raisin Bread

Tyrone has been out of town a lot lately and our home feels so lonely without him. Now, there are countless things that I should be doing. With him being gone you would think I'd get a lot accomplished but that hasn't seemed to be the case. Last week he was out of town 5 days for work and the whole week I just lounged around the house relaxed and didn't do a whole lot. Tyrone left out of town again a few days ago to go on a trip with some of his college buddies and the first night he was gone I was on Facebook and his friend's wife, Ellen, said that with her husband gone she had already cleaned the whole house! She was my inspiration. I decided it was time to be productive. I first cleaned the house and organized quite a few things for the baby. Yesterday I worked half a day and ran errands. Then today I baked homemade cinnamon raisin bread. I feel like that's much better than last time he went out of town. Plus, I worked on Saturday and I'm working on the holiday tomorrow so that's got to count for something right?

Now, as I mentioned on my birthday post, Tyrone got me a Bosch mixer for my birthday a few weeks ago and I absolutely love it! Baking bread is much simpler now and it isn't nearly as big of a task as it used to be. I came across a recipe that makes three loaves of cinnamon raisin bread which is perfect because for one, I only have 3 loaf pans and secondly, I have two friends I wanted to take loafs to and then that leaves me with a loaf for Tyrone and I. Using this recipe in the Bosch is awesome because its bigger than a kitchen aid mixer and it can handle a lot of dough. With the kitchen aid mixer, once you add most of the flour you might have to knead it on the table to make it smooth at the end because the mixing bowl will be too full.

Here is the recipe from Super Glue Mom

Ingredients:

• 1½ cups milk
• 1 cup warm water (between 110-115 degrees)
• 5 teaspoons active dry yeast
• 3 eggs
• ½ cup white sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• ½ cup unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup raisins
• 9 cups all-purpose flour + more for kneading
• 2 tablespoons milk
• 1 cup white sugar
• 3 tablespoons ground cinnamon
• 2 tablespoons butter, melted (approx.)
• 3 9×5 inch loaf pans
  
  Instructions:
• Warm milk (in the microwave or stovetop) to a luke-warm temperature (120-125 degrees).
• Dissolve yeast in warm water and set aside until yeast is frothy, about 10 minutes or so.
• In the bowl of your stand mixer (or a large bowl) add in eggs, sugar, butter salt and raisins. Next, add milk and yeast mixture as well as the water.
• Add the flour gradually to make a dough. (Mine only took just over 8 cups. I would start with 8 and slowly add up to 9 as needed. In the mixer I watch for when the dough starts to pull away from the sides of the bowl leaving the sides of the bowl clean.)
• On a lightly floured surface, knead the dough for a few minutes until smooth. I usually finish my dough on the counter since my stand mixer is not a huge one and it tends to overfill. (Because I had the Bosch mixer I was able to use the dough hook and just knead it with the hook in the bowl for a few minutes until the dough was smooth.)
• Place dough in a large, buttered, mixing bowl and turn to grease the surface of the dough.
• Cover with a warm, damp cloth and let rise. I usually turn my oven on for a couple of minutes while I am mixing the ingredients, turn oven off and let my dough rise in there. It’s warm enough but not hot that it will cook it. (It has been so hot here lately that my dough doubled in size without using the oven in only 40 minutes.)
• Allow to rise until doubled, usually about 1½ hours.

• Roll out on a lightly floured surface into a large rectangle ½ inch thick.

• Moisten the dough with 2 tablespoons milk and rub all over the dough with your hands.

• Mix together 1 cup of sugar and 3 tablespoons cinnamon and sprinkle mixture evenly on top of the moistened dough.
• Roll up tightly (the long way). The roll should be about 3 inches in diameter.

• Cut into thirds, and tuck under ends and pinch bottom together. (I use thread to cut the loaves into three even pieces. This is the same technique I use when cutting cinnamon rolls. (I also cut off the very ends of the long rolls to make the ends look better and fit into the pan easier.)
• Place loaves into 3 well greased 9 x 5 inch pans and lightly grease tops of loaves.

• Let rise in warm place, uncovered, again for about an hour.

• Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes or until loaves are lightly browned and sound hollow when tapped.
• Remove from oven and let cool on rack. Take melted butter and spread over tops of loaves (totally optional).
• After about 20 minutes, lay loaves on their sides and remove from pans. Allow loaves to cool before slicing.

• I bake all 3 loaves at once, cool and slice. I freeze 2 of them for later use.