Baked Boston Brown Bread

This is a pretty intense bread, and not for the faint of heart...or stomach, I guess I should say. This bread was eaten a lot in the 1930's and 40's, and was traditionally steamed in a tin can. This recipe has you bake it in a regular loaf pan, but that does create a different texture than steaming it would. It also means it's not shaped like a tin can, which is kind of disappointing. Maybe I'll have to make this again, and try the tin can method.
  If you like dense bread, you'll love this stuff. It's got buttermilk, molasses, brown sugar and raisins in it. It's pretty rad. It also calls for stone ground graham flour. I had never heard of that, nor could I find any, but I did find some stone ground whole wheat flour, and that worked just as well. If you can't find even that, just regular whole wheat flour will do.
Like most bread, this bread is best hot and fresh with butter slathered all over it. Enjoy!

Baked Boston Brown Bread
2 cups stone-ground graham flour (or whole wheat if you can't find graham flour)
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
1 tsp salt
1 1/4 cups buttermilk
1/3 cup molasses
1 large egg
3/4 cup raisins
1 tsp baking soda
1/3 cup boiling water

Adjust an oven rack to the the middle of your oven and preheat to 350 degrees. Grease an 8 1/2 by 4 1/2 inch loaf pan and set aside.
Whisk the flours, sugar and salt in a large bowl. Whisk together the buttermilk, molasses, and egg in a separate bowl. Gradually stir the wet mixture into the flour mixture until combined. Stir in the raisins. Stir the baking soda into the boiling water until dissolved, then stir into the batter until just incorporated.
Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top. Bake until a skewer inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean, 50 to 60 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through.
Cool the loaf in the pan for 10 minutes. Run a small knife around the edge of the pan to loosen, then turn out onto a wire rack and cool for 1 hour before serving.

Acorn Squash Stuffed Shells

These were yummy. I'm just going to put out there right off the bat. They weren't terribly difficult to make, though the process was kind of messy.
We are in the beautiful fall season now, and I wanted something..fall-y... because that makes sense to me. Stuffed shells are one of my very favorite kinds of food, probably because stuffed shells usually entails the combinations of pasta cheese, which means good things.
I have never really cooked with acorn squash, as I am more of a butternut squash fan. But since half the fun of cooking is branching out and trying new and exciting flavors I decided to give acorn squash a fair chance. Acorn squash is a little less sweet, with a more nutty flavor than butternut squash. I added a little bit more ricotta cheese than the recipe called for, just to add a tad bit extra sweetness.
This recipe is fairly self-explanatory, but one piece of advice for you guys would be to be very careful not to overcook your pasta shells. If the pasta is too soft, the shells will just fall apart, and you'll have an extremely unpleasant time trying to stuff them.
Another good idea, if you live alone, is to invite someone over to share this delicious meal with, so that way they can help you clean up your kitchen after. (Always plan ahead, people!)
The link below will take you to the recipe.

I got this recipe from Naturally Ella.

I'm Back & Mini Peach Strudels

I know...it's been awhile. I've been getting used to a new schedule of working more than twice as many hours as I used to. As you can imagine, that doesn't leave as much time for 6 hour forays into the world of culinary delights, but I promise that I am going give my utmost to keep this little blog alive. I may try posting once a week, and if that doesn't work, twice a month.... Or whenever I get time enough to make something blog-worthy. So, just keep your eye out and maybe I'll surprise you, for you know me, I can't go for too long without having some sort of adventure in the kitchen!

Today I that adventure was in the form of mini peach strudels. They weren't terribly hard to make, but of course, as with anything that requires dough to rise, they were time consuming.
You start off by making a simple dough starter, which you then mix up with flour, egg, etc to make a sweet dough.
I doubled the original recipe, which called for 3 large peaches. So I needed 6 'large' peaches...

On the right is a regular sized, store bought peach. On the left is a peach that I purchased from a local farm...I used 6 of the peaches the size of the one on the left....which resulted in my having a large container of peach filling leftover after I made all the strudels. So you should probably use peaches which fit the normal definition of 'large' size, not 'godzilla of peaches' size.

For these nummy strudels, you're going to have to peel the peaches. Here is an excellent tutorial on how to do that: http://www.beantownbaker.com/2011/09/how-to-peel-peach.html
That way is pretty easy, but I will tell you that is one of the slimiest experiences I've ever had with fruit.

The only problem I had with this recipe was that my dough never really rose. But I used it anyway, and the result was still delicious, but a little heavier than if it had been cooperative. My kitchen might not have been warm enough, or the yeast might have died, or a myriad of others reasons could have been why it never rose. I hope you have more luck with it.

I got this recipe from the blog 'Jo Cooks' and here it is: Mini Peach Strudels  Enjoy!!

A Break

Unfortunately, this is an announcement that I am putting this blog on a hiatus for about 1 month. I've got a lot of crazy stuff going on at work, and I'm moving this month as well, which means my kitchen is going to be packed in boxes.

I MAY put one post up this month, on my birthday :D because I'm going to be making something super-delicious, but we'll see.


But for now, it's farewell for a couple weeks. But don't worry...I'll be back...

(yes, I intended you too read that with Arnold Schwarzenegger's voice in your head)