Jen & Em

by Jen

A year ago, I evaluated the various Pinterest recipes I’d tried out. Well guess what, folks; I haven’t stopped. It’s about time for some all-new recipe reviews, dontcha think?

Let’s get to it.

Creamy Slow Cooker Spaghetti

You know what I love? Spaghetti. Know what else I love? Creaminess. So this recipe, from Picky Palate, has to be the best of both worlds, right?

Well, I don’t know. It was fine. It was good. I didn’t go bonkers for it, and I haven’t made it a second time.

I think the issue for this one is, it’s easy enough to just boil a pot of water and make spaghetti the regular way. Add some jar sauce and some ricotta, and you have creamy spaghetti. The long, slow cooker process didn’t seem to add anything, in my opinion. I guess it saves one from having to stand at the stove and stir, but really with spaghetti, it’s not a big deal.

Moving on.

Butterfinger Cake

I mean, come on. Look at this.

Butterfinger cake comes to us courtesy of the oft-referenced Plain Chicken. Doesn’t it look awesome?

I didn’t make it exactly like PC’s instructions. I used chocolate cake instead of yellow (although I LOVE yellow cake, don’t get me wrong), and I used hot fudge topping instead of caramel (although I love caramel too). I just felt the chocolate version would go over better with a certain recipient of the cake. So, my cake was good. It definitely turns out super-moist, and it’s very sweet, and Butterfingers are delicious. But I’m not sure I totally love a really, well, wet cake like this. You know, like a dulce de leche or something. There’s a lot of moisture going on here.

But then again, part of me wants to try the yellow cake and caramel version, too. So, I don’t know. I’m torn.

Chicken and Pesto Stuffed Shells

This one is also from Plain Chicken and LOOK, LOOK HOW YUMMY:

(Sidebar: The Plain Chicken lady takes such great food photos!)

I actually have this photo set as the “cover photo” for my Pinterest recipe board, because it’s so yummy-looking and it makes me want to make food and eat food. Uh, because I need a photo to make me want to do those things.

So anyway, you take your basic stuffed shells, except you have shredded bits of roasted (rotisserie) chicken mixed in with the ricotta. And also some basil pesto. Yum. Delicious. I love this. I’ve made it for myself and Matt, and I’ve made it to take a friend as a “You just had a baby so here’s some food!” dish. It works on many levels.

Love it, love it, soooo good.

Slow Cooker Applesauce

This one came from a blog called Mommy Makes it Better. I pinned this one mainly because I liked the picture:

And of course, as you know by now, I like using the slow cooker. And also I like apples and their sauce, so win-win-win-win.

The end result? Was good. I gave some away, kept some, ate it. I haven’t made it a second time but I am not a frequent applesauce eater, I suppose. I’d do it again if I had the inclination. I think I would rather do this than just buy a big jar of store-bought. It’s fun to make something where you actually use a cinnamon stick, for Pete’s sake. How often does that come up? (Answer: Not often.)

Slow Cooker “Chile Colorado Burritos”

Here’s another Plain Chicken recipe and another gorgeous food photo:

I was intrigued by this one because it involves making and using your own enchilada sauce. I’d never done that before and wanted to give it a try. Plus, a burrito stuffed with what looks like roast beef and smothered with melted cheese? Yeah, I’m up for that.

Result? Another winner. You slow-cook a bunch of stew beef in the homemade enchilada sauce (which is delicious), then make huuuge burritos with it, top with cheese and more sauce, and broil. Divine.

Salmon

There’s no fancy stuff here, no additions, just: salmon. But it’s the method of cooking the salmon that I wanted to try out, and that method comes from the venerable Pioneer Woman.

Basically, you take a salmon filet, give it the salt/pepper/olive oil treatment, and put it in a cold oven. Then you follow the Pioneer Woman’s directions as linked above, and in no time you enjoy a perfectly cooked salmon. Perfectly. It’s amazing.

Red Velvet Brownies

Okay…here’s the deal. Pinterest, and therefore the whole Internet, is chock-full of red velvet recipes. There are red velvet versions of almost anything. Cookies, brownies, cupcakes, pancakes, bundt cakes, rice cakes, fish cakes, urinal cakes, it never ends.

And I must admit, I’m not as enraptured with the red velvet concept as a lot of people seem to be. Just because you dump a bottle of red food coloring into a baked good and then attach the word “velvet,” people are supposed to go crazy for it? I don’t really get it.

But then, one day, Matt and I sampled a red velvet brownie at our favorite local bakery (Frost It Café in Frisco, TX, by the way, check it out), and darn if it wasn’t delicious. And then I had a Christmas party coming up, and then good old Plain Chicken posted a recipe, so I got it in my head that I should make the brownies to take to the party.

And the result was: well, they were fine. I think they’re a little more work than I really want to do for a Christmas party take-along. And I think Frost It’s were way better than mine.

But look, Plain Chicken’s are so pretty:

And so festive! Can you blame me for trying?

Slow Cooker Chicken Tikka Masala

This was Matt’s birthday dinner. Not only had I never made Chicken Tikka Masala before, I’d never eaten it. But I knew he liked it, based on the fact that he ordered it when we ate at that one place that time, so I saw this recipe on Real Simple’s website and decided to go for it. The “slow cooker” part helped my decision, naturally.

Result? It’s good! I’ll make it again for sure. 

Oh, right: one thing, I totally forgot the cucumber when I made mine, so I can’t speak to how it added to or distracted from the flavor. But the chicken, rice, spices, and stuff were all very nice.

No-Carb Egg Muffins

Sigh. And now we enter the “dark month,” when Matt and I both abstained from carbs. It was a terrible time. But we lost weight.

Anyway, after feeling like I was going to die if I had to eat scrambled eggs for breakfast one more time, I turned to this recipe, from Kalyn’s Kitchen.

And, y’know what? These little “muffins?” They’re eggs. Eggs with some other stuff mixed in, then baked, but they still taste like eggs. Seriously, you guys: I’m going on three months since “dark month,” but I STILL don’t want to taste scrambled eggs ever again.

That’s not the fault of Kalyn of Kalyn’s Kitchen, though. The recipe is just fine if what you want is a bite-sized eggy thing that really can only be called a muffin because it’s baked in a mini muffin tin, but otherwise tastes nothing like a muffin.

Baked Beef and Bean Tacos

Here’s yet another one from Plain Chicken.

This recipe involves making the taco shells out of corn tortillas by draping them on the oven rack and baking for a while. Then you add the beef/bean mixture, top with cheese, and bake some more. The end result was really tasty, but overall it’s rather labor-intensive. However, if these had been made in regular store-bought taco shells, there would be nothing remarkable about them.

Man, you guys. It’s nearing bedtime as I keep writing this post, and I am feeling so super-hungry for some reason. Damn you, beautiful food photography!

“Crazy Cake” aka “Wacky Cake”

This one was all over the Pinterest food boards one day, and it looked pretty good. I had ingredients on hand another day, so I gave the vanilla version a try:

I opted not to make the lovely cup of tea that you see above.

As far as the cake: I don’t know. It was very sweet, but that was from the icing (which I made homemade, but that’s a recipe that will maybe be shared another time). It was okay. Not my favorite cake I’ve ever made. But it was fast to put together, only uses the cake pan (no mixing bowl needed), and…yeah, like the photo says. No eggs, no milk, no butter. What is in there? Well, read the recipe to find out, courtesy of Sweet Little Bluebird.

Bubble Pizza

Those of you who know me on Facebook might have seen the photo of the bubble pizza I made (along with my almost-three-year-old helper) a couple of days ago. The recipe came from The Two Bite Club, and here’s their version:

So, bubble pizza basically is this: cut-up canned biscuit dough with sauce and toppings. Bake it, the dough puffs up a bit, and there you go.

It was good, but y’know what? It tasted exactly like what it was. Store-bought biscuits with sauce, pepperoni, and cheese on them. It’s not a bad thing, but there’s nothing gourmet or even especially impressive going on here. If you need to make something easy and kid-friendly, and pizza-ish, here you go.

And now it’s time for the final recipe! Woohoo!

Balsamic Slow Cooker Roast Beef

I just made this yesterday. Had leftovers today. It is delicious.

This one came from a blog called Add a Pinch, which I might have to check out more often. Slow cooked roast beef with a mixture of balsamic vinegar and other things as the sauce. Guess what I made to go with this, by the way? Roasted Brussels sprouts! That’s right, it all comes full circle.

Wow. I did not think I had that many recipes to cover, but I totally did! This has gone on for a long time! And I really think I need to go eat something before I turn in.

(In all honesty, I really could go for a hunk of that bubble pizza right about now. Too bad there’s none left.)

by Jen

Vegetables have never really been my thing. I used to dislike all veggies that were not corn, potatoes, or raw carrots. I was a picky eater as a kid, and I never really got any better as I aged. I used to hilariously* joke that the only green food I liked was mint chocolate chip ice cream.

But in recent years I’ve gotten a little better:

• I accepted avocados into my diet several years ago, and those are now unequivocally my favorite green food.
• I realized that I don’t hate onions. It turns out, I only hate raw onions. But cooked? Yum. (Especially crispy fried, but there’s no need to dwell on that right now.)
• I learned to like sweet potatoes, which you’d think I never would have had a problem with, considering the word sweet right there in the name.
• I can now tolerate broccoli and spinach, either cooked or raw. I can’t say I like them or actively seek them out, but I can make myself have them.
• Oh, and in January of this year I prepared and tried mashed cauliflower in lieu of mashed potatoes for the first time. You know, all those people who say to do that? They’re not so wrong. It’s not bad, at least not if you load them up with butter and roasted garlic.

But, the fact that I now like Brussels sprouts is the one that still surprises me. I mean, Brussels sprouts! Nobody likes those! 

[Side note: Microsoft is auto-correcting Brussels as I type it, to give it a capital B. Little does Microsoft know I am a nerd and I looked it up on merriam-webster.com in advance. When referring to the vegetable, a capital or a lower-case B is acceptable. But I’m too lazy, I mean, too focused on my blog writing, to change these Bs back, so, whatever, it’ll be capital B here.]

Brussels sprouts have been used as a punch line on countless sitcoms. I can think of two right off the bat: I’m pretty sure there was a reference to the B-sprou (my hip new nickname for it) as an object of derision on a rerun of King of Queens that I saw recently, and I’m also pretty sure The Cosby Show had some kind of joke about them once. So take it from me, a television expert.

But the thing, guys, is, they’re not that bad. In fact, I like them. And if I can like them, so can you.

I first tried a B-sprou a few Thanksgivings ago, maybe five years or so. My mother decided that year to prepare a quartet of roasted fall vegetables, as a new addition to our table o’plenty. She roasted and served beets, parsnips, turnips, and Brussels sprouts.

At that point I was still pretty firmly picky about food. I had accepted sweet potatoes by then, but that was about it. But I decided to be an adult and actually try each of the vegetables, and have an open mind. My prediction was that I’d maybe like the beets, because maybe the roasting would bring out some sweetness, but I figured the others had no chance.

It turned out, I didn’t like the beet at all. There was no sweetness. It tasted like dirt. I can remember sitting across the table from my sister-in-law as we both tried a beet at the same time, and we made the same yuck face at each other. Ah, bonding.

The parsnips were not a hit. I don’t think anyone liked those. I don’t remember much about the turnip but I know I didn’t like it either.

But the Brussels sprout was not bad. I was all, “Hey, this is tolerable. I don’t feel like puking right now.”

And then I didn’t think about them again or taste them again for a few years.

Now, I don’t remember exactly when I tried them again, but it was probably somewhere around the time of my becoming a married person, when I was investigating and trying out new recipes to please my man. (Oh, what do I mean “was?” I still totally do that. Yeah, that’s the ticket.)

I think I saw something in a magazine about roasting Brussels sprouts, and my brain went “Oh yeahhh, I remember that from Thanksgiving that time,” and I just went from there.

As it happens, when I make them my way, Brussels sprouts are awesome. So now, after what we all can agree is a rather long-winded prelude, here is my method for preparing yummy Brussels sprouts:

1. Roasting is key. You gotta roast them.
2. I’ve used frozen (and thawed), and I’ve used fresh. The end result is the same.
3. Cut them in half. This speeds up roasting time and doubles the amount of golden brown outer parts, which is the best part of course.
4. Do not send them into the oven alone. My mandatory companion is sliced onion. I’ve used sweet yellow onion and I’ve used shallots, and both end up delicious in the end. Whichever onion you use, just slice it up however you like. The photo below is from the batch I made tonight, and those are shallots in there, cut into slivers.
5. The other companion, less mandatory but very good to have, is garlic. I like to add a bunch of peeled garlic cloves and let them roast along with the veggies, because roasted garlic is one of the most delicious things ever. When you have your finished product, you can eat a soft, wonderful garlic clove along with your B-sprou half, or with whatever meat/protein you’re having, or heck, spread it on a roll or something. (Sadly, I was out of garlic tonight, so I had to live with adding garlic powder to the salt and pepper I sprinkled on.)
6. Toss these things with olive oil and then add the aforementioned salt and pepper. I don’t measure any of this, of course. Just eyeball it. You can tell by looking that, if you’ve coated your sprouts to the point that you don’t see any green, you’ve added too much salt and pepper.
7. Usually I make the sprouts when I’m making roasted chicken as my main dish. When that’s the case, I don’t segregate. I use cut-up (bone in, skin on—IMPORTANT) chicken and put the pieces in the same roasting pan with the sprouts/onion/garlic. This way everything roasts together, and the garlic and onion get their deliciousness on everything. And as the kids say, it’s all good.
8. Into the oven it goes: 425 degrees.  If there’s chicken in with the veggies, it probably takes 30 or 40 minutes. When the veggies are solo as they were tonight and pictured below, it only takes 20, tops. Just check it every once in a while, probably at 15 minutes, to get an idea of how much longer you want your pan in there.
9. How do you know how long to keep them in the oven? Well, when things get browned, and the onions are either translucent or almost disappeared, you’re good to go. See:

When they’re roasted like this, the sprouts get soft and mild. The onions add some crispy goodness, plus the flavor. Mmm, the flavor.

I should mention, sometimes if you’re roasting chicken along with the veggies, the veggies get really done. Like, if you have chicken breasts in there, their longer cooking time means you’ll probably end up with blackened onion bits. For me, this is not a problem because I like blackened onion bits. But, you’ve been warned. You might want to go with drumsticks and/or thighs if you don’t want the blackness.

“But Jen,” you ask, “Are Brussels sprouts really even that good for me? I mean, they’re just little cabbages, right? How much nutritional value is there?”

Ah, I’m glad you asked. Because I am a nerd, and I’ve looked this up in advance as well.

A website called The World’s Healthiest Foods tells us that the humble B-sprou is “known to top the list of commonly eaten cruciferous vegetables. Their total glucosinolate content has been shown to be greater than the amount found in mustard greens, turnip greens, cabbage, kale, cauliflower, or broccoli.” And what are glucosinolates? They’re “the chemical starting points for a variety of cancer-protective substances. All cruciferous vegetables contain glucosinolates and have great health benefits for this reason.”

Boom! Healthy, cancer-fighting, and yummy with roasted onions and garlic.

Bust out your roasting pan and give ‘em a try. Or come over sometime when I make roasted chicken and veggies.

*Joke is not actually hilarious.

by Jen

Matt and I returned yesterday from another nerd cruise, which you may recall I wrote about last year. This was our second one but JoCo’s third one. It was fabulous.

I’m not going to go into a lot of details, because I did that last time. But I do want to share some links related to some of the performers we saw this year, because they were wonderful and I want to share the wonderfulness.

• Mike Phirman - He does music and is incredibly funny, and everyone on the cruise seemed to agree he’s the nicest guy on the planet. I’d heard of Phirman before last week, but didn’t really know anything of his stuff, and he was the most pleasant discovery of the week for me. I know I use this word too much, but Phirman is truly delightful.
• The Rifftrax guys - aka Bill Corbett and Kevin Murphy. These two gentlemen were the voices of the Mystery Science Theater puppet dudes, and they do Rifftrax, and they are super funny. They did some live Rifftrax-ing to old instructional videos and it was hilarious. I now realize that the only way I’ll be wiling to watch a Twilight movie is to watch it with Rifftrax. I actually hope to do that soon.
• Paul and Storm - I’ve mentioned Paul and Storm before. They’re musical, they’re funny, they basically plan and run the whole JoCo cruise, and they are awesome. I learned this year that Storm is a maniac on the dance floor. I even got to dance with him for approximately two seconds, which was a highlight of my week. Paul and Storm have a new web series called Learning Town. It is funny. We got to watch the first five episodes on a big screen, poolside, which was cool. Mike Phirman is also on Learning Town. (Learning Town, by the way, looks like a kids’ show but it’s really not.)
• Randall Munroe - He is the creator of xkcd, and he told us all about how he actually did fill his apartment living room with playpen balls, and he is amazingly smart and highly amusing. And he kindly autographed Matt’s cruise poster, which of course Randall Monroe did the artwork for.

Okay, that’s enough for now. I have today off (I did not accidentally start working at any point this morning) and I have laundry to fold. Happy Presidents’ Day to me. And to us all!

by Jen

No, really. I am so lame. I’ve done this before and I did it again! Aarrgh, why am I so stoopid?

Okay, see, I work for this large corporation, one that makes computer and computer-related products, and also does lots of services, and lots of stuff.

You would think that a large corporation like that would make Martin Luther King Jr. day a company holiday, right? And you’d be correct. Because it is a company holiday today, ONLY I DIDN’T REALIZE IT AND STARTED WORK THIS MORNING ANYWAY.

Last week more than one person (Em, for example) asked me if I was going to have Monday a.k.a. today off. So I looked at my Outlook calendar, because this is a job where we all depend on Outlook to keep track of our lives for us, and there was nothing there for Monday (a.k.a. today). No holiday blocked off.

So I was all, “Wow, nope, don’t have it off! It must be one of those deals where they figure people can take their floating holiday for that day, if they want.”

Then this morning I booted up my computer, looked some stuff up, fired off an email with a question I need an answer to…and got the guy’s out-of-office reply back. Off for the MLK company holiday.  “Oh, crap,” I thought.

I checked the company holiday calendar on our intranet site. And yes, there it was, OF COURSE it’s a holiday. I just didn’t have any of this year’s holidays on my Outlook calendar.  (There’s supposed to be an automatic app that takes care of that for me, but obviously it did not happen when the new year dawned.)

So, I’m dumb. I “worked” this morning for nothing!  (In this case, the “work” was writing and sending that one email.)

You’ll all be glad to know that I manually entered the rest of the year’s holidays on my Outlook calendar before shutting down the work PC for the day.

Jeez, what a moron. Is this how I’m to honor Dr. King? I tell ya, I’d make some kind of worthwhile plans for the day, but man, my back is killing me today. I strained it when lugging/emptying/rinsing a bucket of scummy water this weekend. Seriously. I am so lame in so many ways!

by Jen

Or, perhaps, a few people expressed interest in obtaining recipes for a few yummy things that were experienced over the holidays. So here they are, in blog form!

First up is the always delightful, always cholesterol-y, bacon crackers.

Matt and I made up a double batch of the yummy bacon crackers for a NYE gathering. We had enough left over to take over to Em’s house the next day for her NYD gathering. People liked them.

Bacon crackers are delicious and are a bit of a pain to make. Once a year is plenty sufficient, I think, both on the preparation side and the consumption side.

Anyway, we only followed an existing recipe ourselves. We claim no authorship. The bacon crackers came from the Pioneer Woman, and here is the recipe. Have fun.

Next I’ll share my process for creating the also-well-received cookies that were served at both new year’s gatherings. It’s pretty simple. I made cranberry and white/dark chocolate chip cookies by starting with the classic Toll House recipe. I followed it exactly, up until the “add the chips” part. Then instead of the classic semi-sweet chocolate chips, I put in some dried cranberries, some dark chocolate chips (different than semi-sweet), and some white chocolate chips. I didn’t measure any of those, just eyeballed it, but it was probably about a cup of cranberries and a half-cup each of the chips.

Some people remarked to me about the softness of the cookies and I think there were two contributors to that: one, I used all butter, as opposed to margarine or shortening. And two, probably more important, I baked them on parchment paper on top of a cookie sheet.

I pretty much used the parchment paper as a lazy way to not have to clean the cookie sheets afterwards, but I think the paper barrier also kept the bottoms of the cookies from getting crispy.

Oh, also: I do not add nuts to my cookies. Ever.

Finally, I give you the magical elixr known as Matt’s homemade Irish cream.

This one started off as a recipe found on the Internet too, but Matt has made some alterations. So the stuff you fans (you know who you are) tasted recently at either my house or Em’s house came from Matt’s special mix, which he has consented to share here:

Mix the following thouroughly in a blender:

 

1 1/4 cups Irish whiskey
1 tablespoon espresso powder
14 ounces (1 can) sweetened condensed milk
1/2 cup half and half (you may use heavy cream but Matt prefers half/half)

1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tablespoon real vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon real almond extract
1 tablespoon honey

by Jen

Here’s me lately, whenever I look in a mirror:

“Ugh, another one? Seriously?”

or, “Gah! Ergh! Fie!”

or, “No. No, this can’t be, because I’m forty.”

But the mirror doesn’t lie. And what it’s telling me is that I’m now one of those people to come down with a case of Too-Old-For-Acne Acne.

My concealer is working overtime.

Now I realize that, in the scheme of things, this is not a major problem to have. But it’s annoying. I mean, I haven’t felt like bursting into a chorus of “I Feel Pretty” in weeks.*

So here’s my question, for any of you out there who are not afraid to admit you’ve had a similar experience: ProActiv? Is that what I should get? Something else? Send me a message via Facebook and let me know, because I’m sick of looking like an unlucky teen on school photo day.

*Actually, I’m not sure I’ve ever felt like bursting into a chorus of I Feel Pretty, but really that’s another topic for another, more introspective blog. Some other time.

By Em

The kids and I are finishing up a two-week vacation with my folks. Over a thousand miles from home and, roughly, 20 degrees cooler at any time. Lovely.

The challenge I’ve had, however, is at bedtime. The three kids are sharing a room which, in and of itself, is not a problem. Primo and Secondo share a room a home, but Terza is the wild card here: “wild” being the operative word. She and Secondo can kind of ricochet off each other (sometimes literally) and the bedtime routine can be, let’s just say, difficult.

Until last night! I had an epiphany! Only two nights left on vacation, but still! Epiphany!

The routine had been: pajamas, tooth brushing, two or three stories. Lights out. Kid getting out of bed. Another kid getting out of bed. Tucking in. Kids out of bed. Lights flipped on. Delighted screeching among the children. Lights out. Tucking in. Mild threats.  Kids out of bed. Me losing my shit.

One of the mild threats that seemed to work was taking away Terza’s lovie and telling her, “stay in your bed quietly for 10 minutes and I’ll give lovie back to you.”

Last night, I used the 10 minute timer in a different way.

The new routine: pajamas, tooth brushing, lights out. “I’ll set the timer for 10 minutes. If you ALL stay in your beds and stay quiet, then after the timer goes off, then I’ll read stories.”

Guess what? They stayed in their beds. Secondo was asleep before my timer went off. Then “The Three Little Pigs” was whispered to Primo and Terza. Primo conked out tonight before I could even finish telling a version of “Beauty and the Beast.” Terza’s popped out of bed a few times tonight, but I chalk that up to a late afternoon nap of hers.

Will this continue during the school year? Not sure. Story time has morphed into the boys reading stories to me or husband, so that probably won’t change. But, for the nights that Terza is a little too amped up? Yes. Yes, I believe this will be the new routine.

I really wish I had thought of this, oh roughly 12 days ago. Now I know.

(Food for Thought Thursday)

by Jen

In the eight months I’ve been a married person, I have experimented with cooking and recipes more than I had when I was single, as you may recall. One thing I’d done in my single past, but certainly not very often, was make homemade bread. I’ve done it a few times recently, though (made rolls for the family Easter gathering, made some garlic pull-apart stuff on a couple of occasions for entertaining purposes, etc.) and I have to say, there’s something very satisfying about it. And I’ve figured out that, time permitting, I really prefer to do it all myself rather than use a bread maker. I think it’s the kneading. Kneading is pretty cool.

Anyway, I got a whim recently to make some wheat bread. Wheat, because technically we’re still doing the diet thing. We really shouldn’t be eating much bread at all, but we’re allowing it here and there. So I might as well make sure it’s healthy, right? Right.

My mom, incidentally, makes the best homemade white bread in the world. If I ever need to make white bread or rolls, her recipe is the way to go. But I wanted to make wheat, so I decided to find a recipe in one of my cookbooks and see how it worked out.

The cookbook: Betty Crocker, of course. The recipe: old-fashioned honey whole-wheat bread.

Here’s how it went for me.

First up is mixing the whole wheat flour, honey, shortening, salt, and yeast.

And because I’m a dope, first I tried mixing it with a wooden spoon. It was funny, after just a turn or two of the spoon, it appeared as if all the ingredients except for the flour disappeared. That flour took over everything.

But then I realized: Oh, wait. The shortening isn’t going to blend in this way, duh. So I switched to the electric mixer and things started to look much more correct.

Next was the addition of the warm water:

Let me tell you, when warm water meets yeast, even if your dough looks like an ugly batter, it already starts to smell great. Nummy indicator of things to come.

Next, Betty instructed me to add all-purpose flour, one cup at a time, “to make dough easy to handle.” I was a little disappointed at this addition of white flour. I thought I was making healthy bread, darn it. But I wanted to follow the instructions as closely as I could, so:

It takes many cups of all-purpose flour to make the dough easy to handle. It stays sticky for a long time.

Once I thought I’d gotten the dough up to par, I prepped my kneading surface (yay, kneading!). Now, here’s what I do, and judge as you see fit. I clear off my counter, then give it a scrub/wipe as needed with a disinfectant wipe. Then, because I certainly don’t want to put my food onto something that was just chemicaled-up, I go over the counter with a wet paper towel, then a dry one. I figure this way, I’ve cleaned the surface of any nasty infectants, but then also cleaned it of the Product-That-Rhymes-With-Florox, as well. This works for me. I welcome alternative suggestions.

Anyway, here’s my “lightly floured” surface:

Note—those spices and things you see behind my flour area are only there because they tend to always stay on the counter near the stove. They weren’t part of this actual recipe (except for the salt and honey).

The next step is to get the dough on there and knead for about 10 minutes. I quickly realized that I hadn’t made my dough ready enough. It was still really sticky. I’d say it took the first five minutes of my kneading time just to get the dough unsticky enough to be properly kneaded.

Adding more flour…adding more flour…repeat…

Like I said before, I enjoy the kneading. Spending 10 minutes pushing and shaping dough is kind of Zen. It goes from being daunting, to boring, to therapeutic. At one point, and I am not making this up, the repeated motion of the dough being pushed away from me and then flapped back into position reminded me of the repeated openings and closings of the balcony doors in the old Chanel Egoiste commercial. You see what kneading does to you? You get into the rhythm of it and your mind wanders, and look what kinds of crazy crap your memory digs up:

Egoiste!

(Note – this is the French version of the commercial, and I could have looked harder for the English one, but why? This one is AWESOME. All commercials should be in crazy, angry French.)

So, anyway, there I was, pushing and pulling dough and mentally chanting “Egoiste, Egoiste!” as I did it.

Until the kneading portion was complete:

Ahhh. Now that’s what bread dough should look like, non?

(By the way, I didn’t take any kneading action photos because my hands were caked in dough and flour at the time. Sorry; next time I’ll try to have a photography assistant.)  ((Not really.))

My lovely dough then got to rest in a greased bowl, for it was time to rise.

Here it is, pre-rise.

For the rising phase, I put a clean dish towel over the bowl and I let it rise in my oven (cool oven, that is). I put it in there to keep it away from felines, because Scout has proven herself untrustworthy around bread.

Betty says to let it rise for 40 to 60 minutes. I gave it the full 60, and looky here:

Yeah, baby! Now that’s a rise, amiright? I love it.

Okay, now, here’s where the recipe, in my opinion, gets weird. Betty has rather particular instructions for forming the dough into loaves. I tried to follow along, for integrity purposes. But it was weird. Here’s what Betty says:

Punch down dough and divide in half. Flatten each half with hands or rolling pin into rectangle, 18x9 inches, on lightly floured surface. Roll dough up tightly, beginning at 9-inch side, to form a loaf. Press with thumbs to seal after each turn. Pinch edge of dough into roll to seal. Press each end with side of hand to seal. Fold ends under loaf. Place seam side down in pan.

Rolling it out with a rolling pin, then rolling it up like a yule log, tucking and pinching? What? It seemed rather unnecessary to me, but I tried to follow along.

That is as close as I can get to a rectangle shape, when rolling springy dough out. Oh well. I rolled and tucked, and put those babies into my prepared loaf pans.

Betty said to lightly brush with margarine. And, oh darn, I didn’t have margarine on hand but I happened to have some actual butter. So that’s what I used, and I regret nothing, Crocker!

I also added the knife scores, which you can see in the closest loaf up there. I was going for that buttered split-top effect.

Back into my cool oven these went, for more rising time.

Another hour later (Betty only said 35 to 50 minutes this time, but I was busy), I was rewarded with more delightful dough expansion:

I don’t know, am I the only one who thinks it’s super-cool how dough rises like that?

Looking at the above picture, I get pretty tickled at how different my two loaves are. The one on the right is straight, normal, lookin’ good. The one of the left is goofy and deformed. I’ve made the Goofus and Gallant of breads.

375 degrees, 42 minutes (Betty says 40 to 45, but by 42 I could tell by the smell that mine were done), and ta-daaa:

Toasty brown whole-wheat bread. (With honey and lots of white flour.)

Shoot—I should have taken one last picture after I glossed up the tops with a bit more butter, darn it. A food photographer, I am not. Well, c’est la vie, as the French would say. Only they’d yell it angrily from a balcony.

That there’s my bread-baking tale. Matt and I enjoyed a couple of slices with our dinner, and it was tasty, yummy, no complaints. Overall, here’s my assessment of Betty’s recipe:

• Fairly easy to make
• Doesn’t make too much of a mess – just the mixing bowl and the loaf pans, and whatever spoon/scraper you use. Uh, and your countertop, after the kneading is done.
• Smells awesome as it’s baking
• Tastes good
• I’d just ignore the wacky part about shaping the loaves and do it my own way next time. I bet I wouldn’t end up with any Goofus bread that way.

So, wheat bread via Betty? Thumbs up. I recommend you give homemade bread a whirl sometime…you know, if you eat gluten. And if you have the time to wait out the two rising phases. And the baking phase.

But really, it’s easy and smells/tastes good, so do it!