Lots of Good Recipes

I haven’t blogged here in a while, but I have been cooking a lot.  Just this weekend, I tried 3 new recipes within 24 hours and they were all great, so I wanted to share them .  Friday, I made Speedy No Knead Bread (I was going to make this Golden Wheat Bread, but it sounded like too much work), the Best Chocolate Chip cookies ever, and then on Saturday morning we had Sweet Potato Biscuits (& I just made another batch of these for tomorrow morning.)  I would highly recommend them all.  I was skeptical of the cookies with a name like “the best . . ever” but they are definitely the best ones that I’ve ever made. Read on for the recipes with my notes about them.  And, here’s a link for homemade English Muffins I made recently that are also great.  Enjoy & share!

Sweet Potato Biscuits
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Sweet-Potato-Biscuits-with-Ham-Mustard-and-Honey-356312

Liz Notes: I mostly followed this recipe. I didn’t weigh my sweet potatoes, but I cooked 2 med/large size ones and had a little bit more than enough for twice this recipe (1.5+ cups).  I used crisco instead of butter, but I’m sure either would be good.  The recipe says it yields 25 biscuits, but you can only get about 10-12 good sized biscuits or 25 really small ones.  I cooked mine for 20 minutes with some in a metal pan and they got a little burned on the bottom, but the ones in the ceramic dish were fine.  I would recommend using ceramic dish and cooking for ~20 min or cooking them at 400 for 18 minutes or so. We didn’t have ham, but ate them with spicy faux chicken nuggets, dijon mustard and honey and they were delicious.

• 1 3/4-pound red-skinned sweet potato (yam), peeled, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
• 1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon (packed) dark brown sugar
• 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• Pinch of cayenne pepper
• 8 tablespoons (1 stick) chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes, plus 2 tablespoons butter, melted
• 1/3 cup chilled buttermilk
• Dijon mustard
• 6 ounces thinly sliced country ham or Black Forest ham
• Honey

Cook sweet potato in medium saucepan of boiling salted water until tender, 8 to 10 minutes. Drain, cool, and mash.

Position rack in lower third of oven; preheat to 425°F. Butter bottom and sides of 9-inch cake pan with 1 1/2-inch-high sides.

Whisk flour and next 5 ingredients in large bowl. Add cubed butter to flour mixture; toss to coat and rub in with fingertips until mixture resembles coarse meal. Whisk 3/4 cup mashed sweet potatoes and buttermilk in medium bowl. Add to flour mixture; toss with fork. Gather mixture in bowl, kneading until dough comes together. Turn dough out onto floured work surface and pat into 1-inch-thick round. Using 11/2-inch round biscuit cutter, cut out biscuits, flouring cutter after each cut. Gather scraps; pat into 1-inch-thick round. Cut out additional biscuits (do not reuse scraps more than once).

Arrange biscuits side by side in prepared cake pan. Brush with melted butter. Bake until puffed and golden on top and tester inserted into center biscuit comes out clean, about 22 minutes. Cool 10 minutes in pan. Turn biscuits out and gently pull them apart. Cut each biscuit in half crosswise.

Spread bottom half of each biscuit with mustard, then top each with sliced ham and second half of biscuit. Serve with honey.

The Best Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe EVER! aka Alice’s Chocolate Chip Cookies

http://savorysweetlife.com/2009/10/alices-chocolate-chip-cookie-recipe/

Liz notes: I only got about 36 cookies from the recipe.  I used a 1/4 cup less plain sugar and made my own brown sugar with 2 T of molasses per cup of plain sugar (you have to mix it well until it turns into the consistency of brown sugar).  I was skeptical of this being “the best .. ever!” but I think they are the best chocolate chip cookies that I’ve ever made.  Using more brown sugar (and I guess creaming the butter and sugar for 5 minutes) keeps the cookies a little softer, moister, and thicker than usual.  I didn’t try the coarse sea salt or weigh out my flour, but it turned out fine for me.

Alice’s Chocolate Chip Cookies
Makes approx. 45-48 cookies using a sm-med 2tbl. cookie scoop

INGREDIENTS:

1 cup (2 sticks)  salted butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla extract
3 cups (12 oz) all-purpose flour *If at all possible, please weigh the flour

1 tsp. smallish-medium coarse sea salt *please do not use table salt, the sea salt gives the cookies a nice flavor and hints of texture. If you only have table salt, use 1/2 tsp. *When using sea salt, you will get small crunchy flecks of salt when you bite into the cookie.  If you do not like this taste, go with 1/2 teaspoon of table salt.

1 tsp. baking soda
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
2 cups/16 oz of semi-sweet chocolate chips *I use Nestle Toll-House

Preheat oven to 360 degrees. Cream butter, sugar, and brown sugar until it is nice and fluffy (approx. 5 minutes on medium speed on a K-5). Add both eggs and vanilla and beat for an additional 2 minutes.  Add baking soda, baking powder, salt, and flour until cookie batter is fully incorporated.  Finally add chocolate chips until well distributed.  The cookie batter should be somewhat thick.  Drop about 2 tablespoons of dough or use a medium cookie scoop and plop the batter onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.  Bake for 12-14 minutes until the edges are nice and golden brown. Remove from heat and allow the cookies to stay on the cookie sheet for an additional 2 minutes.  Pick up the parchment paper with the cookies still on top and transfer to a cool non-porous surface.  Allow the cookies to cool on the paper for at least 3 minutes before serving. Enjoy!

Speedy No Knead Bread (from NY Times)
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/08/dining/081mrex.html?ref=dining

Liz notes: this sounds so easy, that I couldn’t pass it up.  my dough ended up being really sticky and I thought I messed it up (even though I followed all the directions), but it turned out great.  I definitely had to scrape it off the plastic wrap and wax paper to get it in the pan.  I used a ceramic casserole dish and I didn’t have a lid for it, so I put a  big cake/brownie pan over it, but I did put it in the oven early to warm it up as the recipe recommends.  Oh, and I wouldn’t say it yields a really big loaf.  Mine was medium sized and was kind of  like focaccia bread.

3 cups bread flour
1 packet ( 1/4 ounce) instant yeast
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
Oil as needed.

1. Combine flour, yeast and salt in a large bowl. Add 1 1/2 cups water and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest about 4 hours at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.

2. Lightly oil a work surface and place dough on it; fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest 30 minutes more.

3. At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6-to-8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under dough and put it into pot, seam side up. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes.

4. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack.

Yield: 1 big loaf.