Updated granola recipe

Life is busy and part of the busy is feeding everyone.  Breakfast is always interesting.  As it gets warmer, yogurt and cold cereal become more the norm.  The cold cereal has become the granola I make.  Yogurt is always eaten with the granola I make.  Yogurt goes bad in the refrigerator if I do not make granola.

I have actually stopped looking at the recipe but I also realized that I am not following the original recipe anymore.  It is still a backpacking recipe but I have tweaked it.  Both quick oats and old fashioned oats.  The butter and brown sugar ratio has been tweaked.  So....  I decided I better write it down because my family will try to make it when I am not around and I will tell them to come here.  And it better be updated!

newest granola

Note:  This is a tweak from my original granola recipe, which was a backpacking recipe.  I like simple but if you wish to add dried fruit and nuts, please do.

2 cups quick oats

2 cups old fashioned oats

1/2 cup butter

1 cup brown sugar

2 teaspoons cinnamon or to taste

1 teaspoon ginger or to taste

In a skillet, melt the butter over a medium heat.  Add the brown sugar.  Mix well and let cook until the brown sugar until it has dissolved into the butter.  Mix in the cinnamon and ginger.

Turn off the heat, add the quick oats and old fashioned oats.  Mix until the oats are well coated with the brown sugar mixture.  Turn out onto a parchment or silpat covered baking sheet.  Let cool.  Store in jars.

The only way this has lasted more then a few days in my house is if it gets hidden.

Enjoy!

pancake batter, sugar brioche, and cinnamon rolls

I did not talk about it the last time I posted, but my house sat under the smoke from the chemical fire in Deer Park, Texas.  Allergies are always bad this time of year but I could taste the chemicals in the back of my throat.  The government was saying the air quality was moderate but I have an acquaintance who is a neurologist and she said the numbers of people coming to the hospital with strange things was way up.  I got sick. 

My allergies changed into something that had fever.  Every adult I was around with that fever caught crud.  It has been an interesting week trying to care of short people.  And I swear Blue was some type of prehistoric marine mammal in a previous life.  He likes to spend an hour in warm water if you let him!

But while this has been going on with life, I have been trying to keep up with bread.  I have now come to the conclusion that my hot cross bun recipe translates into many lovely things.

The hot cross buns have walnuts and cranberries in the recipe.  I leave those out it the dough becomes many things.  I leave it as a batter, it becomes pancakes.  The plain dough makes lovely sugar brioche.  And after eating lovely sugar brioche in New Orleans, I wish some in my own kitchen.  I laminate the plain dough with butter and swirl in cinnamon and brown sugar, it becomes cinnamon rolls that are better then what can be purchased out.

pancake batter, sugar brioche, and cinnamon rolls

Note:  I started with the hot cross bun recipe from Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book.  I have tweaked to use sourdough and make the dough richer.  

a couple tablespoons of sourdough starter

1 cup buttermilk

1 cup water

3 cups flour

1/2 cup sugar

2 eggs

2 teaspoons salt

3 cups flour (no more, even for kneading)

1/4 to a 1/2 cup butter

In a large bowl, about eight hours before you want to make pancakes, mix the starter, buttermilk, water, and three cups of water together.  Cover and put in a warm place to become bubbly.  Depending on how warm your kitchen is, eight hours is a good guess but it could be less or more.

Take out a couple of tablespoons of the starter and mix back into your starter jar.

Into the bowl, put the sugar, eggs, and salt.  Mix well.

At this point, take the amount of batter out of the bowl that you would like to become pancakes.  I put it into a quart canning jar.  If the dough is stiff due to the water content of the flour, I will add some more buttermilk to thin it.  Remember, the dough is yeasted so it is still growing.  Leave plenty of room or it will explode in the refrigerator.  It is a mess to clean up.  And yes, it has happened to me.

When you are ready for pancakes, warm up a griddle on a mediume low heat.  Melt butter.  Drop the batter by tablespoons on to the griddle.  Koda Bear usually eat nine to twelve before school and I am a genius for making sure there is pancake batter every morning!

To the rest of the dough, mix in 2 cups flour.  It should start being a soft dough.  Add another 1/2 cup if it is too soft.  Turn it out on to a clean surface and knead until it starts to become smooth.

Put the butter on the counter and beat it flat.  I fold it, sprinkle with flour, and beat it again.  Sometimes, I beat it with my hand.  Sometimes with my rolling pin.  I am going for soft pliable butter.  The little bit of flour will let it be kneaded into the dough easier which is what I do next.  I knead the butter into the dough until the dough is smooth and the butter is well incorporated.

Put the dough into a ziploc bag and refrigerate at least over night.  Refrigerating for 24 hours is good too.

When the dough has been refrigerated, make buns or cinnamon rolls.  Follow my cinnamon roll directions for shaping and baking.  I will have to change that because I have been laminating 1/2 cup of butter into my cinnamon rolls.  It really takes it to the next level but I have not taken enough pictures.

If you make sugar brioche, this dough balls are much too big.  Make them about golf ball size.  Because the dough is cold, it may take all day for the dough to rise and get puffy.

Bake at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for 20 minutes.  I do not preheat.  The bun needs to be golden.

I am still experimenting with how to add the sugar.  Currently, I am using a egg white wash and granulated sugar while the bun is still warm.  I will continue to experiment with it.

I am trying a new brioche recipe this week but I will be surprised if it is as good as this.  Why do I try?  Because other people rave.  And I know everyone has different tastes.  Why not try?

I am making sugar brioche for my birthday breakfast.  It will be a day of food I wish to eat!

chocolate chip cookies with butter

My cookies and scones are baked.  The packages are mailed.  I am truly at a mndset of I got this step done today.  I am not going to get everything done for Christmas.  I am probably not going to get everything done for the Tall Short Person and Koda Bear moving in before they get here. 

As long as everyone has a place to sleep, I think we can go forward.  My Beloved purchased the wood to build the bed yesterday.  I am going to put an email together for hm shortly with the cut lengths.  That way the pieces may be cut before he leaves to drive the Tall Short Person back.  I will not have to go looking for a saw then.  I will just need the screw gun and a hammer.  I also will need to decide what color this bed should be.  I did not even think I would need to decide that.

I have had a friend ask if I sleep.  I also had a friend ask if the corporation I am working at has swallowed me.  I am not getting as much sleep as I would like because sleep is a competitive sport and I am losing.  I added the corporate contract gig but did not remove anything that I had started after the last time I left.  I never feel like there are enough hours in the day for what I wish to do.  I really feel like there are not enough hours now.  But it is still one task at a time.  

I chose not to stop doing anything that I enjoy or makes me happy.  And after the first of the year, I get to learn more building.  A truck cabin is going to be built on the back of my truck for mobile sharpening.  I am hoping that just maybe it could be flexible enough with a good deep clean, that I could use it for camping as well.  That shoulder style camping where a place out of the wind and rain is a good thing.

Now, cookies.  My Dad always like his chocolate chip cookies made with vegetable shortening because it makes them soft.  Me, I like butter because shortening!  The flavor is just better.  After the success with the molasses cookies I decided to give it a try.  He may say these are not right but they are awfully good.

chocolate chip cookies with butter

Note:  The starting point of these cookies were Toll House Chocolate Chip cookies.  My favorite.

1 cup butter

3/4 cup sugar

3/4 cup brown sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 teaspoon water

2 eggs

3 1/2 cups flour

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons baking soda (I may be decreasing this measure as I use this recipe)

1/2 to 1 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit

Cream the butter, brown sugar, sugar, vanilla, and water together in a medium bowl  until light and fluffy.

Mix in the eggs.  Mix in the flour, salt, and baking soda.  Mix in the chocolate chips.  I like chocolate chip cookies that are not too chippy so I usually go with a smaller portion of chips.

Onto a baking sheet covered with parchment paper or silpat, drop spoonfuls of dough.  Or you can make them into one inch balls if you wish a more uniform shape.  

Bake for 8 to 10 minutes, until golden but use your own taste for how gooey you wish them.

They turned out well.  I probably will tweak because that is what I do but maybe not too much.

molasses crinkles with butter

It has been a crazy couple weeks.  I tried to add the office job in to the rest of my life.  Which means that I have not been here as much as I try to do.  I had a friend who asked if the corporation swallowed me.  It does feel like that a bit.  There seems to be a lot of loneliness there.  And social skill need work.  There are graceful ways to end conversations.  

Koda Bear is coming back so the house is being rearranged.  Which actually stresses me out.  I would rather sell or throw out then rearrange.  But that is not going to happen currently.  Though I did realize my fiber addiction might be a bit out of control.

Last Christmas, I was not pleased with all the cookies I made.  Mostly it was do to with the butter.  It just works differently.  I played with the cookies a bit this year because I wanted the cookies to be puffier.  Not thin sugar circles.  Though the sugar circles are lovely to eat.  Just not puffy.

I figured out both the molasses and chocolate chip cookies.  I need to write down the recipes here.

molasses crinkles with butter

1 cup butter

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup molasses

2 eggs

2 teaspoons baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

2 teaspoons ground ginger

1 teaspoon cloves

3 1/2 cups flour

sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar together until fluffy.  Mix in the eggs and molasses.  Sift in the baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and flour if you wish.  Mix.  If you have time, refrigerate over night.  Then, do not turn on the oven.

When you are ready to bake, cover baking sheets with parchment or silicon mat.  Roll the dough into balls that are about an inch across.  Dredge in sugar.  Place a bit two inches apart on the baking sheet.

Bake for 8 to 10 minutes, or until set.

Puffy, not spread, cookies.  Yum!  Very good with tea.

toasted oatmeal bread

I mentioned in my last post I was trying a new bread recipe.  Toasted oatmeal bread.  The goal was to have more flavor in the regular oatmeal bread that the boyos like so well.  And I did succeed.  I will also admit that I have made this twice and it turns out better for me if I do not extra hands helping.

I could get very philosophical about this bread.  Bread in general.  But bread is wonderful food for the belly and meditation for the hands.  The boyos think they will starve if there is not lady made bread in the house.

My house was very cold when I made this so all the rising times were very long.  That helped develop more flavor as well.  It will be April before I have to worry about much warmth in the house to make the rise happen faster.

toasted oatmeal bread

Note:  I used Zachary Golper's method of toasting and grinding the oats in this loaf.  He uses steel cut oats and those are my favorite.  I would like not to have to buy three types of oats for the house!

sourdough

1 cup steel cut oats

2 cups water

2 tablespoons molasses

1/4 cup brown sugar

5 plus cups flour

2 teaspoons salt

2 tablespoons butter

Lately, I have been using so much sourdough that I have gone to a quart jar.  I used about 1/4 cup of sourdough that had been refreshed for this bread.

Put the steel cut oats in a cast iron pan.  Put the pan in a 425 degree Fahrenheit oven and let toast for about four minutes.  Stir.  Toast for another four minutes.  Stir.  Check the browning.  Watch them closely for the next four minutes because somewhere in there they will go from nicely golden to black very quickly.  It does not take much more then this, especially in a toaster oven!

I have a high powered blender.  A ninja.  I dump the toasted oats in that and let blend for about 15 minutes.  I usually leave the room.  The flour should be fairly fine but you will have to blend it even longer to get fine flour or sieve.  I just chose to have a gritty texture added to the bread.

In a large bowl, put the sourdough, 2 cups of water, the oat flour, molasses, and brown sugar.  Mix well. Mix in three cups of flour. Cover and let get bubbly.  It took about four hours or more in my cold kitchen.  But the yeasty beasties were happy!  The batter should remind you of pancake batter.

When the dough is bubbly, mix in the salt.  Mix in enough flour to make a kneadable dough.  Soft but not stiff.  It is better to go for less flour because the grittty oats will still take up water.  Smear the butter on the counter and knead it into the dough as well.  Put back into a bowl and cover.  Let rise for about an hour.  Flatten gently and fold.  Do this twice more.  Put in the refrigerator for over night.

The next day, line a loaf pan with parchment paper or butter it.  Take the dough out of the refrigerator and shape it into a load.  Put in the pan.  Let rise.  This could take close to all day.

When the dough has risen well, bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 1 hour.  I over filled my pan so I had crazy edges.

So good!  My next loaf is seedier because I had help.  But it is all good.  It is bread.  The bread I was making today got turned into pizza so I will start more tomorrow.  I need to clean the bowl out a bit.