Hello, old friends...

Herb Focaccia Bread

I found this recipe a few years ago and have spent the last few years tweaking it to suit my family's taste.  It's definitely a family favorite! It's also my go-to recipe to send with homemade spaghetti sauce to new moms or as a "get well" meal. 

Here's the cast list (I've added rosemary because I adore it. Feel free to follow the recipe and leave it out!)

Of course, my small helper wanted in on the action. Mommy does the measuring, but E gets to do the fun part - the "mixing"!

I love how the mix looks as the herbs all get added. 

When I have time, I like to follow the "1/2 - 2xs" rule with the yeast.  If you use half the yeast and double the rise time, your flavors develop more and you have a different depth of flavor. Today, I just followed the recipe.  Rise for one hour (or until doubled). I let dough rise under a damp, warm dish towel (one that doesn't have fuzzies, or else you'll be making fuzzy bread!)

I vary the baking methods as well, depending on what I'm looking for that night.  Some nights, I want a more crisp, flatter bread.  Those nights, I roll the dough to about 1" and follow the baking directions (450 for 15 minutes).  However, this bread tastes quite similar (or better, if you ask my hubby!) than Macaroni Grill bread. So on the nights I'm looking for that comforting flavor, I will leave it more of a thick loaf, lower the bake temperature (usually to about 350 bake convection) and lengthen the cook time (I usually just start pressing on the middle around 20 minutes and go by how much it "squishes." Very technical, I know. Sorry!)

Then we enjoy! 

Here's the recipe, copied from My Wooden Spoon

Easy Focaccia Bread

INGREDIENTS:

* 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
* 1 teaspoon table salt
* 1 teaspoon white sugar
* 1 tablespoon active dry yeast
* 1 teaspoon garlic powder
* 1 teaspoon dried oregano
* 1 teaspoon dried thyme
* 1 teaspoon dried basil
* cracked black pepper
* kosher salt
* 1 cup + 2 tablespoons water
* 3 tablespoons olive oil
* 1 tablespoon grated Parmesan cheese

DIRECTIONS:

Making by hand:
1. In a large bowl, stir together the flour, salt, sugar, yeast, garlic powder, oregano, thyme, basil and a pinch of black pepper. Mix in 1 tablespoon of olive oil and water.
2. When the dough has pulled together, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface, and knead until smooth and elastic. Lightly oil a large bowl, place the dough in the bowl, and turn to coat with oil. Cover with a damp cloth, and let rise in a warm place for 20 minutes.

Mmm Recipe time!

The weather here is *finally* getting cooler and that means it's time to bust out the soup and crock pot recipes! Yay!My first choice when we got home from vacation was a recipe a friend told me about awhile ago (Thanks, Stacy!!) Lasagna Stoup!

Start with 1lb ground beef and saute until browned. Mix in onion, carrot (and I added green peppers because nothing is "Italian" to me w/o peppers!).

Saute that for a few minutes with the meat.

Then add in a bit of water and chicken broth.

Add 1 lg can of crushed tomatoes and bring to a boil.

Put in 1lb of broken lasagna noodles (I recommend breaking them smaller than I did - we needed forks to eat that part :-) For some reason I had it in my head they were supposed to be 1" sections -- who knows why :-)

Tear and add 1 cup of fresh basil leaves.

Serve with a dollop of Ricotta cheese and parmesan cheese to top.

Here is the "official" recipe (for those like me that must follow recipes exactly)

 Lasagna Stoup

2 Tbls EVOO
1 lb ground beef sirloin
salt & pepper

1 large onion, finely chopped
2 carrots, grated
3-4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
32oz (4 cups) chicken broth
2 C water
28oz can Italian crushed tomatoes
1lb lasagna noodles, broken in to jagged pieces
1 C basil leaves, torn
1 C whole milk ricotta
grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese

1. In a soup pot, heat the EVOO over medium-high heat. Add beef, season with salt and pepper and cook unil browned. 3-4 mins. Stir in onion, carrots and garlic. Cook until softened, 5-7 mins. Stir in 2 cups water, chicken broth and tomatoes. Cover and bring to a boil. Add the pasta and cook until al dente, about 15 mins. Stir in basil and season with salt and pepper.

2. Serve in bowls and dollop with ricotta. Pass parm at the table.

All in all, this got rave reviews from my family, except that we all felt there was *some* flavor missing. I will definitely be making this again, so hopefully we can figure out what we were missing this time! Awesome recipe for a cold fall day - comfort food at it's best, that's for sure! Thanks again, Stacy!

Food Obsession: Chocolate Covered Peanuts

I have a small addiction to chocolate covered peanuts.

Before I got pregnant, I was doing Weight Watchers. I realized I had no way to gauge my peanut treat intake if I didn't strictly measure my peanut clusters. So I bought a mini muffin tin, weighed out my peanuts and put in a precise amount of chocolate/butterscotch mixture. My points value (depending on the methods I used) came out to be between 2-3 pts per cluster. WORTH it :-)

Here's my muffin tin full of peanuts, just waiting for the oozy chocolate/butterscotch mix.

I always melt my chocolate over a double boiler, not in the microwave. I just like the way it turns out better. And if you can get your hands on a *glass* bowl, those work better than metal. If you can't get glass, plastic works too. Metal seems to get too hot and can seize up your chocolate. Be sure when using a double boiler that you don't get ANY WATER in your chips! Mix well while it's melting, because the chips won't change shape until you do - and you risk scorching it!

Filling the cups - almost there!

I pop mine in the deep freezer for a short amount of time (usually because I don't care if they're set before I start eating them ;-)) and then you can just pop them out onto a large cutting board or your counter!

You can make them "prettier" if you mix the chocolate and peanuts together, then put them in the cups. However, as I mentioned, these are the WW version :-)

 

My Recipe: 

3 oz lightly salted peanuts

10oz chocolate/butterscotch chips - I prefer about a 60/40 mix chocolate to butterscotch, but play with these numbers for yourself (you WILL make them more than once - they are addictive!)

This makes 18-2pt snacks. 

My new favorite side dish.

A friend told me about this recipe from the Pioneer Woman. And I'm addicted!

Plus, I've found a farmer's market near our house where I can buy the small red potatoes for $0.75/lb! Mmmm. I always use at LEAST 2lbs of potatoes for my family of 2.5 people :-)

Wash your red potatoes.

Boil them until they are tender.

Liberally olive oil a cookie sheet. Put the potatoes down, a few inches apart, and smash. (PW suggests a potato masher. I don't have one *birthday list!* but I've found a metal mallet works best for me. The glass just smashed them too much, with no texture).

Put olive oil, kosher salt, fresh cracked pepper and your choice of herb on top. My kiddo loves to help with the "sprinkling" part!

There's a few steps in between, but I wanted to showcase my fresh-from-the-garden Rosemary! Mmm.

Put them into the oven on 450 degrees for 20-25 min (I usually put mine in for 30 because I like extra crispy potatoes!)

This is always the last step I can get a picture - when they come out of the oven, it's all I can do not to gobble them up straight off of the cookie sheet!

Spaghetti on the Wall

Throw spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks: (v)

                                                                         Joe-Ks

I've been contemplating a blog for my crafting, sewing, cooking etc for awhile. My hurdle? A name. I was THAT hung up on a name that it's been MONTHS since I first started thinking about this. 

And here we are. Spaghetti on the walls. We're going to throw stuff at the screen and see what sticks.  I'm going use this blog to encompass all of these areas, possibly even my husband's photography hobby will come into play. Such as this:

From FOOD This is my homemade pizza. Maybe we'll get to that in the next entry.