Chicken Taco Braid

I am sorry that I haven't been posting much this week.  Things around here have been... well... crazy. 

It started when little man, who has had the nickname "stunt-baby" for a while, broke his leg. Yeah. Smallest cast I've ever seen in my life.

Then little miss got a stomach bug over the weekend. Yuck.

Then, in a twisted case of "you're never going to believe this...," Daddy broke his leg, too.

That's right. The boys in the house are sporting matching blue casts.

Luckily little miss is feeling better.

In the middle of all of this, Julie over at Willow Bird Baking announced her second baking challenge. I had so much fun with the first one (these cinnamon rolls) that I really wanted to participate. But with the reality of taking care of everyone, I was worried that I wasn't going to be able to.

But today I decided that I wasn't going to let anything stand in my way, and I just went for it.

This week's challenge was to make a braided bread of some sort, using this dough recipe. It's not a yeasted dough. In fact, it is a super simple, very quick dough. It's usually used for sweet or breakfast-y treats, but we were challenged to innovate, and to choose a filling and glaze/topping of our choice.

I first thought I'd just punt and go with a simple jam filling.  But then I figured, if I am going to bother participating in the challenge, I couldn't cop out.  So I decided to make a dinner braid, using what I had on hand.  

The dough is super simple. It's supposed to be made in the food processor, but, not having a full-sized one, I used my KitchenAid mixer.  The key is to only mix the dough until the ingredients are just incorporated, being careful not to overwork it.  And, seeing as I was going for a savory braid, I chose to omit the flavoring extracts called for in the breakfast version of the recipe.

The dough is then carefully rolled out and sectioned and cut to be filled and braided.

And what did I choose for my filling? I went easy. But tasty. I had a couple of boneless, skinless chicken breasts in the refrigerator, so I boiled them, shredded them, and simmered them in taco seasonings.  The shredded meat was topped with grated cheddar cheese, and I started "braiding."

My braid turned out a little uneven, but not too bad.

And it baked up super quickly. 15 minutes and dinner was ready.

I mean, almost ready. Remember that we were supposed to choose not only a filling, but a glaze, too. With a taco filling, I decided on salsa and sour cream as "glazes."

Oh. My. Gosh.

This was so delicious. Everyone loved it. And had seconds. And little miss requested that I send the leftovers with her as lunch for school tomorrow.

With how easy this dough is, I see many more braids in our future.

Julie, thank you, thank you, thank you for another awesome, inspiring and truly delicious challenge!! I can't wait for next week!!

Chicken Taco Braid

(inspired by Willow Bird Baking)

for the dough:

2 cups all-purpose flour, sifted
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter
3 ounces cream cheese
1/2 cup milk, minus 1/2 teaspoon (I used coconut milk)

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. In the bowl of a food processor (or stand mixer), mix the flour, baking powder, and salt. Add the cream cheese and butter into the flour mixture and pulse (or mix on low speed with paddle attachment) to cut the fat into the flour (about 6 pulses). Add the milk and blend (mix on medium speed) into a loose dough.

Turn the dough onto a floured surface and knead VERY LIGHTLY for 4-5 strokes. (note: This is the step at which you can ruin the braid. If you overwork the dough, the pastry will be tough. Just gather the dough together and don’t worry about making it smooth. It will still look a little rough. That’s perfect.)

Between two sheets of waxed paper, roll the dough to a rectangle approximately 8" by 12". Turn dough out onto a lightly greased baking sheet and remove the waxed paper. (note - I rolled my dough between one piece of parchment paper and one piece of waxed paper, then just peeled off the waked paper and transferred the parchment paper to my baking sheet - worked like a charm!) Measure and mark the dough lengthwise into thirds.

Make 2¾-inch slight diagonal cuts at 1-inch intervals on each the long sides. Do not cut into the center area, where the filling goes.


for the filling:
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1/2 packet taco seasonings
1/2 cup water
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese (more or less to taste)

Boil chicken breasts for about 25 minutes until cooked through. Remove from water and shred the meat.
Add the shredded meat to a skillet, sprinkle taco seasoning on top and add water to the pan. Bring the mixture to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for at least 10 minutes.
Allow the chicken to cool before filling dough.


to prepare the braid:
Spread the seasoned, shredded chicken along the middle section of the rolled out dough. Top the chicken with the shredded cheddar cheese.  Fold the cut strips, first one from one side and then one from the other side in a rotating fashion, over the filling. It will now resemble a braid.

Bake in a 425° oven for 12-15 minutes, until the dough is cooked through and the top is lightly browned.

As a topping, spoon or pipe (if you want to make it look like glaze) salsa and sour cream over the top of the finished braid.

Enjoy!

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Jewish Apple Cake

My next door neighbors just had a baby. A beautiful baby boy. 

When someone has a baby, I usually prepare a meal to bring over, since cooking is just about the last thing on a new mom's mind. 

But this neighbor was super prepared - for a few weeks prior to the birth, she made double portions of dinners and stored the prepared meals in the freezer. Seriously smart. I wish I'd been that prepared when I had my first!

Anyway, I still wanted to bring something.  So I thought... breakfast! Dinners can double as lunches, but what about breakfast on those weary, sleep-deprived mornings?  A nice dose of sweetness would be the perfect thing. So I chose to make a Jewish apple cake for them. Fruit (so it's healthy!) and sugar (for an energy boost) - perfect!

Most of the recipes I found were pretty similar, so I chose this one and set to baking.

The recipe came together super easily. And quickly, if you don't count the time it takes to peel, core and slice the apples. Or bake... but I swear, if comes together quickly.

I made only one substitution. The recipe calls 1/4 for orange juice. But when I pulled out the carton, only a few drops came out. Hmm... So I grabbed the pineapple juice instead.  Other than that, it's a simple matter of combining all of the ingredients right in a single bowl.

Once the apples are sliced, the batter is mixed and some cinnamon sugar is prepared, the elements are layered in a sprayed bundt (or tube) pan. Half of the batter, a layer of apples, half of the cinnamon sugar...

...and then repeat the layers.  I tried to arrange the apples nicely on the top. Even though it becomes the bottom...

And a mere 75 minutes later (see? the long part...), out came this delicious smelling golden delicious beauty.

There was only one problem.

The pan didn't want to share.

Yeah, see that crack? Totally not what I was hoping for. But I drizzled on some glaze and went with it.

The neighbors loved it, and I plan on making it again. Probably twice. Once more for them, and then once for us, too.

Welcome to the world, baby boy! I can't wait to bake for you, too! :)


Jewish Apple Cake
(only slightly adapted from BookCooking.net)


3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
2 cups white sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs, beaten
1/4 cup pineapple juice
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 apples - peeled, cored and sliced
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
5 teaspoons white sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour one 10 inch tube pan (I used a bundt pan). In a small bowl, combine the ground cinnamon and 5 teaspoons of the sugar together and set aside.
In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, salt, baking powder and 2 cups of the sugar. Stir in the vegetable oil, beaten eggs, pineapple juice and vanilla. Mix well.
Pour 1/2 of the batter into the prepared pan. Top with 1/2 of the sliced apples and sprinkle with 1/2 of the cinnamon sugar mixture. Pour the remaining batter over the top and layer the remaining sliced apples and cinnamon sugar.
Bake for 70 to 90 minutes (mine took about 75 minutes).

Enjoy!

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Pumpkin Brown Butter Apple Cinnamon Rolls with Maple Glaze

Boy, that's a mouth full to say, isn't it?

But with so many delicious Fall flavors out there, it was really hard to limit myself!

I've been wanting to try a pumpkin-dough cinnamon roll for a while, actually. And my first thought was to use the same pumpkin dough that I'd used last year to make this delicious pumpkin pull-apart bread. But when I went to Willow Bird Baking, the awesome site where I'd found that recipe in the first place, my plans changed. Just a little.

Turns out, Julie (the awesome baker behind Willow Bird) is hosting some weekly challenges (FUN!), and that her first challenge, going on this week, is to make cinnamon rolls! But not just plain old cinnamon rolls - she challenged everyone to get innovative and create our very own kind of cinnamon rolls.  The only requirement that she gave was to use a dough recipe that she provided (here).

Perfect timing, right? Well, almost. I still wanted pumpkin. For the dough.  No problem, I simple modified her given recipe (with high hopes that it would work...) and proceeded with my original thought.  The dough is prepared the night before and refrigerated, so I don't have pictures of that process (I made it by hand in a dark kitchen - no light + messy hands = no photos), but the next day I did the fun part - the filling.

I didn't use any found recipe for my filling, rather winged it.  I started by browning two sticks (one cup) of butter.

Love that nutty smell and flavor!

Next, I chopped three (HUGE!) apples and tossed them into the browned butter, along with 3/4 of a cup of light brown sugar and a teaspoon of cinnamon.

Once the apples softened a little bit (not totally - I still wanted them to have a bit of bite, since they'd cook further when the rolls baked) and the syrup was, well, nice and syrup-y. I set that aside to cool and pulled the pumkin-ified dough out of the fridge. (I'm allowed to create words, right??)

The dough recipe makes enough to make two pans of rolls, so I divided the dough in two, rolled each half into a huge rectangle, and topped each with half of the filling.

The filling was a little thinner than I'd intended. Which made rolling it up tough and cutting them...

...a little messy.

Not one to waste brown-buttery-syrupy goodness, I scooped up the extra sauce and spooned it over my cut rolls.

Then it was time to let them proof. The rose beautifully.

And baked up even more beautifully.

And to top them off, I chose to make the maple glaze that I'd used on these other rolls.

As I said, this recipe makes two pans of cinnamon rolls. That's 24 buns. That's a LOT of sweetness. So I brought a couple over to my neighbor (who just had a baby! hooray!!), all packaged up...

And then we dug in!!

Oh my gosh, these are so good. I'll admit that I was hesitant about the dough - it is not a traditional sweet yeast dough - it actually comes together more like a biscuit dough, but with yeast added into it... but it WORKED. Sweet dough goodness with biscuit flakiness - I am a doubter no more. And the pumpkin, apple, brown butter and maple made for a perfect taste of Fall.


Pumpkin Brown Butter Apple Cinnamon Rolls with Maple Glaze


Roll Ingredients:
(slightly adapted from Willow Bird Baking)

1 package (2 1/4 teaspoons) active dry yeast
1/4 cup warm water (100-110 degrees F)
1 tablespoon white vinegar
1 1/4 cups milk minus 1 tablespoons, room temperature
3/4 cup pumpkin puree
2/3 cup cold shortening (I use butter)
3 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
5 cups flour


Filling Ingredients:
(my own design)

3 large apples (or more, if they are smaller), chopped into small pieces
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, browned
3/4 cup light brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon


Glaze Ingredients:
(based on Joy the Baker)

2 cup confectioners' sugar
2 tablespoon maple syrup
4-12 tablespoons milk (I needed more than I expected!)


Mix the warm water and yeast in a medium bowl and let the yeast foam, about 10 minutes. Put  tablespoons white vinegar in a 2-cup measuring cup and then add milk up to the 1 1/4 cup line. Set this aside. In a separate large bowl (or the bowl of a mixer fitted with a dough hook), whisk together flour, sugar, salt, baking soda, and baking powder and cut the shortening into the mixture with two knives or a pastry cutter until the shortening looks like small peas. Stir yeast mixture, pumpkin puree and milk mixture into the dry ingredients and mix well, kneading just a few turns. Transfer the dough to a bowl lightly sprayed with cooking spray, cover tightly with plastic wrap, and store in refrigerator overnight.

The next morning, prepare your filling. In a medium saucepan, brown your butter, then allow it to cool a bit. Toss apples, light brown sugar and cinnamon into the same pot and cook over medium-medium high heat until the apples are well coated, the liquid is syurpy and the apples have begun to tenderize. Set this aside to cool.

When you are ready to prepare the buns, lightly spray two 9" x 13" baking pans with nonstick cooking spray and turn the chilled dough out onto a floured surface. Roll the into a large rectangle about 1/8-inch thick (I carefully cut the dough in half and worked with half at a time to make it more manageable; if you do this, just spread on half of the filling ingredients for each half you roll). Top the rolled-out dough with the filling (again, half the dough, half the filling if you divide the dough, which I recommend...) and spread the filling to about a half inch of the edges. Gently roll the dough up into a spiral and cut it into rolls, placing them close together in your prepared baking dishes (12 buns per pan).

Cover the rolls with a clean dish cloth or some plastic wrap and let them rise in a warm spot until they’ve nearly doubled, about 1 1/2 – 2 hours. About half an hour before baking, preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Bake the buns for about 15-20 minutes or until browned on top (if you take them out at just lightly golden brown, they may still be doughy in the center).

Whisk together the glaze ingredients (adding additional milk to get it to your desired drizzling consistency) and drizzle the glaze over the warm rolls.

Serve immediately.

Enjoy!

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Balsamic Cole Slaw, A Tribute

The food blogging world is an interesting one. Like any family, there are different types of relationships. There are friends and rivalries. There are collaborations and competitions. There are misunderstandings and triumphs. But, like any family, people come together to share joys, celebrate life, and offer support each other when needed.

Within the food blogging world there are various subcommunities, several of which I am honored to be able to include myself as a member. The most recently joined (by me) of these, if you recall, is the Secret Recipe Club.  This group is a true community, and today we are coming together to honor the life of one of our members, which was cut short way too soon.

Daniel Sagara of the haggis and the herring, was someone who I wish I'd had the opportunity to know better. While we were in the same group within the SRC, I have only been a member for one month. I was, however, familiar with his blog prior to joining, and always enjoyed reading his delicious posts.

To learn a little more about Daniel, please read the beautiful eulogy given at his service by his wife Meridith.

Today, members of the Secret Recipe Club have come together, at least by blog, to honor this special member, in the best way that we can - through his recipes.

While there were many recipes I wanted to choose, I decided on this balsamic coleslaw, because it looked like a fresh, delicious take on the standard mayo-based coleslaw, and it sounded delicious.

I started with a bag of pre-shredded cabbage and carrot coleslaw mix, and then gathered my dressing ingredients.

The dressing is mixed up in a saucepan and heated until it comes to a boil.

The dressing is then poured over the cabbage and carrots and mixed together until all of the veggies are well coated.

The salad is then refrigerated for at least two hours.

I served the coleslaw as a side dish to shredded pork sandwiches, and it went beautifully.

Actually, right after that picture was taken, I piled the slaw right onto my sandwich, and that was even better!

And the next night, we served it again with barbecued honey-five-spice chicken, asian noodles and bok choy.

Either way, this was a light, fresh and delicious coleslaw which I will be making again.


To Daniel's family, I wish you peace, strength and love in this unimaginably difficult time. Thank you for sharing Daniel with the food-blogging world, where his memory will live on forever.

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French Onion Soup

While summer weather is my favorite of the year, there are so many things I love about Fall. I love comfy sweaters, cool boots and the delicious Fall flavors. The cooler weather also signals the beginning of soup season!

One soup that I have never tried making before, but which daddy orders whenever he has the opportunity, is French onion soup. So this week, we decided to give it a try at home.  I chose a recipe and set to work.

The longest part of the process is the onions. Onions are the star of this soup, but it takes a lot of work, time and patience to turn them into soup.

I started with a five pound bag of yellow onions...

...and proceeded to peel and chop for... well... a while. Little miss helped me with the peeling for a while, but after the first pound or so, decided she'd rather read on the couch.

But with a bit of persistence, I soon had a bag full of onion skins...

...and a soup pot over half full with onion slices.

Now, I know a lot of recipes start with "caramelized onions." Notice the quotation marks. Because the recipe usually says "add your onions to the pan and sautee for 5-7 minutes, until caramelized." Yeah. True caramelization takes time. Not a quick, high heat burn, but a ssslllloooowwww process of cooking them down, extracting the moisture and cooking all the delicious natural sugars that live inside those onions.

As they start the process, you can see how much they cook down.

And after about an hour (yes, an hour!), if you are lucky, you have a pot of deliciously golden deliciousness.

(two things to note with the above picture - 1) the lighting was TERRIBLE and the golden color was very washed out, but trust me - they were golden brown and delicious looking; 2) how in the world is that four pounds worth of onions?? CRAZY how small it cooks down!)

(anyway...)

Once the onions are all caramelized, it's time to turn them into soup, which is pretty much the easiest thing in the world. Just add stock.  And season to taste.

The primary spice called for in the recipe that I used is thyme. I also added some salt to balance out the sweetness of the caramelized onions.

Now, if you have ever ordered French onion soup out, you know that the best part is the delicious cheese melted on top of each serving.

But I don't have oven safe crocks in which to serve the soup in order to achieve that cool look (and taste).

Not to be deterred, I did the next best thing.

See, French onion soup is also usually served with a big crouton or chunk of French bread in the soup.  So I made the bread do double-duty.  Before putting the bread into the soup bowl, I topped it with cheese (gruyere is traditional, I used swiss) and popped it under the broiler.

I then put the melty, bubbly bread pieces into the bowls and served the soup right around them.

Not quite the same, but it definitely gave the feeling of cheese-topped bread-filled French onion soup. This French onion soup is sweeter than what we've had before, but was still rich and delicious and well worth the time it took to make it.



French Onion Soup
(adapted from BS' In The Kitchen)

4 tablespoons Unsalted Butter
4 pounds yellow onions
2 teaspoons sugar
2 tablespoons flour
6 cups beef stock
4 teaspoons fresh thyme or 1½ teaspoons dried thyme
Salt & Pepper to taste
French Bread
Swiss cheese (gruyere is more traditional, but I didn't have any)

Start by preparing all of your onions.  All of the onions need to be peeled and evenly sliced.
Once your onions are sliced, put the butter in your largest pot, set the heat to medium low, and, once the butter has melted, add all of those onions right in the pot. Sprinkle the tops with the sugar and then... be patient.
Let the onions caramelize, stirring only as often as needed to keep them from burning or sticking to the pan. You don’t want to stir too often, as this will prevent them from browning and caramelizing.
Once they become a beautiful, even, deep golden brown, increase the heat to medium, and after a minute or two, mix in the flour and then start pouring in your stock.
Slowly pour the stock in, stirring as your pour.  Add thyme and continue to stir.  Allow soup to simmer for 30 - 45 minutes, tasting as you go. Salt and pepper to taste.

To serve, slice the French bread into thick slices and top with slices of swiss cheese. Broil the cheese-topped bread for just a minute or two until the cheese is toasted and bubbly.

Place one or two cheese-toasts into your bowl and then ladle the soup onto/around them.

Enjoy!

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September Daring Bakers' Challenge - Empanada

Patri of the blog, Asi Son Los Cosas, was our September 2012 Daring Bakers’ hostess and she decided to tempt us with one of her family’s favorite recipes for Empanadas! We were given two dough recipes to choose from and encouraged to fill our Empanadas as creatively as we wished!

Well wouldn't you know, empanadas have been on my "hmm... I should try those one day!" list for a while! Now, I always thought of empanadas as, well, kind of like hand pies - small, individually sized meat, well, hand pies! Turns out, the empanadas that Patri shared with us were family-sized, made with yeasted dough, and filled with just about anything that you can imagine.

So the first decision came in trying to decide what I'd use as my filling. Me being me, all of my first thoughts were dessert. But then inspiration hit when I looked at my meal plan. The week after the challenge was announced, the first thing on the meal plan was Italian sausage, pepper and onion sandwiches. As I started pulling out the yeast and flour to make the rolls, I thought - hey! I could do the same meal, just in empanada form! So that's what I did.

Instead of making rolls, I used my yeast and flour to pull together the very simple empanada dough.  The dough calls for paprika. Taking inspiration from my filling, I used garlic powder instead.

As the dough rested, I prepped my filling - chopping onions and peppers and removing the casings from some sausages.

I then cooked up the filling in a large skillet...

...and constructed the empanada. About half of the dough is rolled out nice and thin and placed onto (and over the edges) of a baking sheet. The dough is then covered with the cooked filling. I topped half of the filling with thickly sliced provolone cheese, too, for some extra ooey-gooey goodness.

The other half of the dough is then rolled out and placed over top. The edges are sealed (I tried for a crimped pattern...). The top is then both decorated and vented.

And then it bakes!  The dough gets nice and golden, and the whole thing looks pretty fun.

And makes for a pretty tasty dinner!

But, me being me, I couldn't let the idea of a dessert empanada go.  All along, I'd been wanting to try an apple-pie inspired version, but the month kept slipping away from me. So I finally went for it last night. You heard me. Mere hours before this post had to go live.

The dough came together just as easily, though this time I used cinnamon as my spice of choice, and added in a touch of sugar to sweeten things up.

And for my filling? I wanted to go caramel-y with my apples. So I started with butter and brown sugar.

Yum.

And then I set to peeling and slicing these.

And cooking them down in that delicious, caramel-y goodness.

Unfortunately, my four apples and one pear were not enough to fill my empanada. Which I didn't realized until all of my dough was rolled out and I was to the point of, well, filling it up. So I quickly had to peel and cut and ooey-gooey caramelize a few more apples and pears. But after that...

...we were good. And for the decoration this time?

I went with little miss's favorite - my old fairy design (remember that? from here? and here?). She requested that I add hair. And a face. The face didn't show up so well, but when it came out of the oven, she declared it a success, so that's all I could ask for.

Well, I could ask for a little more than that, but then she told me she loved it, and that answered that question. And it really is delicious - yummy fall goodness encased in flaky deliciousness.

I have to say - I was so pleased with this challenge. The dough was simple, but flaky and delicious, the possibilities are endless for delicious fillings, and it's fun to make and decorate, and share with family and friends!

Patri, thank you so much for sharing your family's dish with us and for being such a wonderful host!

To see the amazing, creative and gorgeous empanadas baked up in the kitchen this month, check them out here.

Empanada Dough

(a recipe using wheat flour from “La Empanada Gallega” as provided in the challenge)

3½ cups all-purpose or bread flour

1 cup warm water

½ cup less 1 tablespoon of liquid fat (I used canola oil)

1 tablespoon active dry yeast

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon sweet paprika (or garlic powder or cinnamon - depending on your filling!)

Sift the flour into a bowl, make a well in the middle and add all the ingredients.

Mix with a wooden spoon until all the ingredients have been incorporated

Turn dough onto your counter and knead for 8 minutes

Make a ball and allow to rise covered with a cloth for about half an hour before using.

The rest of the steps are the same as with the first recipe.

You can also use knead this dough in a stand mixer - just reduce the kneading time to 5 minutes.


Prepare a filling of your choice.

When you are ready to prepare the empanada, preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Divide the dough roughly in half.
Roll the larger piece on parchment paper to just-larger than a baking sheet. Place the dough, still on the parchment, onto the baking sheet. the dough will hang over the edges a bit.
Layer your prepared (and cooled) topping over the rolled out dough.

Take the other half of the dough and spread it out to approximately the same thinness of the base. You can use a piece of parchment paper for this, too. Take into account that this “top” dough needs to be smaller around than the bottom, as it only needs to cover the filling.
Carefully transfer the top to the pan cover the filling by carefully moving the parchment to the pan, turning it over, then gently peeling off the wax paper.
Using your fingers, join bottom and top dough, when you have gone all the way around, start pinching top and bottom together with your thumb and index finger and turning them half way in, that way you end up with a rope-like border.
When you are finished, make a 1 inch hole in the middle of the top layer (or otherwise vent the top to go with whatever design you choose to make...) This will help hot air exit the empanada while it’s baking without breaking the cover.
You can use left-over dough to decorate the empanada, using rounds, bows, lines… let your imagination flow and make it pretty!
Bake the completed empanada for 45 minutes, until golden brown.

Enjoy!

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