Snowy Weekends Are Made for Cooking!

Since it had been absolutely FREEZING and SNOWING like mad or the last 2 weekends, my hubby and I stayed at home, not daring to venture out in the frigid wasteland that is Edmonton.  Of course, hubby played video games, while I put my time at home to good use.  Last weekend was the ignition of my discovery of baking bread, and so that inspiration continued this past weekend.

I dared myself to make a regular, plain old white bread AND...

Coconut bread.  Something different.

First, I modified the pesto bread recipe, and omitted the pesto and ''extras,'' and it came out looking like it did last week.

Yeast rising dough

Fresh bread!

Fresh sliced bread!

Next up, coconut buns!

6 mounds of dough

Rising

Added coconut goodness!

End result

They were finished within 2 days!  Soft buttery buns with toasted sweet coconut... nothing else could make a snowy weekend any better.

Happy Cooking!

Rib of Primeness

Since my husband's family decided to deep-fry a turkey for Christmas, my husband asked me over the holidays, ''What are we having for our own Christmas?"

I thought about it.  And then I remembered watching Food Network's Christmas special The Best Thing I Ever Made and how I was drooling at Alex Guarnaschelli's recipe for....

"Prime rib and Yorkshire pudding," I answered.  

"Mmm, that sounds great!" Hubby answered.  

Hubby found a 3 lb prime rib, which I thought would be perfect for just the 2 of us.  It sure was a lot of meat, and we had plenty of leftovers! :) 

And so here is the recipe, adapted from Alex Guarnaschelli (her recipe is for a 14-16 lb prime rib):

Ingredients (Prime Rib):

1    3-lb prime rib, bone in

4 T Dijon mustard

4 T grainy mustard 

4 large cloves garlic, minced

1/2 small onion, minced

1 T whole black peppercorns

Coarse salt

In a bowl, combine the 2 types of mustards with garlic and onion. Stir to blend until it is all incorporated and resembles a thick paste.  Rinse prime rib and pat dry.  Place the prime rib fat side up in a roasting pan, fitted with a rack (or in my case, I put it on 3 whole carrots).  Spread mustard paste all over the meat.  Season with salt.  Refrigerate overnight.

Ingredients (Yorkshire Pudding):

1 1/2 C flour

3/4 T salt

3 eggs, room temperature

3/4 warm water

3/4 warm milk

1/2 C butter, melted, plus extra for greasing muffin tin

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  

Remove prime rib from the refrigerator 30 minutes before cooking.  

When oven is hot, place meat in the centre of the oven.  Allow to cook for 12-15 minutes per pound.  You want the meat to reach an internal temperature of 135 degrees F. 

For the Yorkshire pudding, in a medium bowl, combine flour and salt. Stir to blend.  Whisk in eggs one by one, until smooth.  Add the water.  Refrigerate.

When roast is close to finished, remove Yorkshire pudding mixture from refrigerator; allow to cool to room temperature.  Allow meat to rest for at least 20 minutes before serving. 

To finish the Yorkshire pudding, raise the temperature of the oven to 400 degrees F and place a greased muffin tin into the oven.  

Whisk the warm milk and melted butter into the Yorkshire pudding batter.  When the muffin tin is very hot, (around 15 minutes in the oven), carefully remove it from the oven and quickly add in the butter and any prime rib drippings from the pan.  Then pour the batter about halfway into the tin and pop it back into the centre of the oven.  Bake until golden and puffy, around 30 minutes.  

Enjoy!! :)  Let me know how it turns out for you!

Happy Cooking!

Happy New Year!

I didn't realize how many comments/likes I would get on Facebook today, all because I finally did my  2010 year-end clean up and uploaded photos of my cooking.

I guess people like looking at pictures of food.  Wait, scratch that.  People love food, period.  That in turn, has inspired me to re-incarnate this blog.  More importantly, if I can help or inspire you to cook for yourself, then I will have fulfilled what I wanted to do with this blog.

I intend to make 2011 a year a firsts.  To take chances, to be inspired, to be motivated.

So without further ado, one of the first things I made this year was white bread.  First of all, like Rachel Ray, I am not much of a baker.  I would consider cooking more of my forte rather than baking.  I had never made any type of bread before, because in my mind, it was a daunting task.  (Says the girl with a KitchenAid machine).  Things with yeast scare me a little since I don't know what technically constitutes ''lukewarm'' -- too hot and you'll kill the darn things; too cold, and they won't activate.

Anyways, I decided to venture into yeast territory and make not just white bread, but pesto bread.  Actually, pesto, cheese & onion bread.  Ooooh la la!  I had some frozen pesto that I bought in the summer, and I was itching to get rid of it, so I thought it would be a perfect application in my bread.

This is what resulted:

Success!  For my first time making bread, I'm pretty happy with the result.  The bread was soft and fluffy, amidst the filling of pesto, onions, and cheese.  I think I will start baking my own bread every Saturday now.  First off, it's cheaper than store-bought bread; secondly, you control the ingredients you put in -- especially with the amount of preservatives and salt in commercial bread, and it's freshly homemade!  What else could be better?  

Happy Cooking!