Delicious Rosemary Bread: Like Macaroni Grill!

I am a failure at sticking to this blog thing.  I cook things, I take pictures of them, I eat, I do dishes, I am exhausted, I don't blog.  It is a vicious cycle.  And then a month has past since I made the thing and thus never blog about it.  Bad, bad, bad.

Anyway, this recipe was delicious.  I made the rosemary bread like you get at the beginning of your meal at the Macaroni Grill and it turned out wonderfully!  I even made it with the fresh rosemary from my garden.

This came from a cooking blog called Cooking Classy.  As always, I will post the link at the bottom.  The recipe is really not too difficult, just a lot of waiting as the bread rises.  I made this on a Saturday afternoon when I had plenty of time.

Not too many ingredients.  Just the usual warm water, yeast, flour, salt, sugar, and olive oil, plus the fresh rosemary.

First you add the warm water, yeast, and sugar together and whisk.

Let sit for a few minutes.  Add olive oil, more water, flour, rosemary, and salt.  Blend until combined.

Then add more flour and knead.  I did have a little problem with getting the consistency right.  First it was wet so I added flour then it was too dry to stick together so I added more water and then more and eventually it worked.  Cover bowl and put in a warm place to let rise for 1-1.5 hours.  Word of wisdom: the original recipe doesn't say to oil the bowl before letting rise, but do because I didn't and then it was kind of difficult to get the dough out.

Before

After

Once it is done rising, turn it out onto a floured surface.  Divide into two equal portions and lightly oil a baking sheet that has a rim.  Shape dough into ovals as well as you can.  You want to do this well because when it rises next it will just amplify that shape and then bake that way.  Let rest again for another 1.5 hours.  Preheat oven to 450.

Before

After.  See how they are slightly off-shaped since my original ovals weren't perfect?

Bake for 10 minutes, remove and brush olive oil and kosher salt over the tops.  Return for 10-15 minutes or until golden brown.

Awesome!  Cut into slices, dip in olive oil with a little pepper, and enjoy!

It turned out so well!  Next time I will probably eat one loaf and freeze the other since the second started to go bad before I got to it.

Here is the link to the original recipe: http://www.cookingclassy.com/2013/06/rosemary-bread-macaroni-grill-copycat-recipe/

I promise, promise, promise to write more.  I made a delicious lamb the other day I promise to blog about in the next day or so.

As always, thank for reading.

-Liz 

Zucchini & Ricotta Galette - Yummy & Fantastic!

Once again, apologize for the delay between posts.  I honestly have three things built up to post about and I just haven't had the time/energy.  But I am going to skip ahead and before writing about the other two I have done this past week and a half and write about what I made tonight because it was so good and I'm so proud!

I got this recipe off of the Smitten Kitchen blog.  I have her cook book, love it, and I love the blog as well.  My mom and I made one of her galettes out of the book so when I saw this one and had lots of zucchinis from my garden to use I just had to try it.

Amazing!

So of course I will post the link to the actual recipe at the bottom of this post, but pictured below are the ingredients.  Crust: flour, salt, butter, sour cream, lemon juice, water, and an egg yolk wash before baking.  Filling: Zucchini, ricotta, parmesan, mozzarella, olive oil, garlic, and basil.

First you put the flour in the freezer.  Strange I know, but I did it for a little while and it worked.  The recipe says 30 minutes, I did maybe 15 because I was anxious to get started and it worked out fine.  After freezing, you whisk it together with the salt.

Take very cold butter and cut it into the flour mixture.  Then you use a pastry cutter to turn the mixture into about a fine meal texture.  Now I don't know about other beginning chefs out there, but I don't happen to have a pastry cutter in my baking supply arsenal.  Never fear, use two knifes and cut like crazy until the butter is as small as you can get it and well covered in/mixed with flour.

Add the sour cream, lemon juice, and ice water together.

This is how the flour and butter mix looks after being cut.

All together now and form into a dough ball.  Try not to work the dough too much and if everything doesn't get all incorporated no worries.  Cover in plastic wrap and stick it in the fridge for an hour.

While waiting you can slice up your zucchinis.  The recipe says 1/4" slices, no I did not get out a ruler.  As long as they are relatively thin and the same size you'll be fine.  Then lay it all out on several layers of paper towel and sprinkle evenly with salt.  This is amazing.  It draws the water out of the zucchini and then before you put them in the galette just blot it dry.  Science is awesome.  Sorry I forgot to take pictures of this step.

Mince up the garlic and whisk together with the olive oil.

Then mix together the cheeses.  This was the only place a deviated from the recipe.  I prefer mozzarella over Parmesan so I switched their amounts doing 1/4 cup Parmesan and 1/2 cup mozzarella.  Mix it all together with a tablespoon of the olive oil and garlic.

Once the dough is done in the fridge, you roll it out into a roughly 12" round.  Doesn't have to be perfect, mine sure wasn't.

Carefully transfer that to a baking sheet and then put everything together!  First the cheese mixture, leaving a couple inches around the outside.

Then "shingle" the zucchinis.  This basically means you layer them so they all overlap with each other a bit.  Douse that in the rest of the oil/garlic and then fold the outer crust over the inside leaving a hole in the center.  You will have to pleat the dough to make it lay flat.

Make a little egg yolk and water mix.

Coat the dough in it and bake!  The recipe says 30-40 minutes, I barely needed 30.

Slice up some basil while you wait to sprinkle over the top once it comes out of the oven .

Yay!  Looks fantastic.  Let cool on the pan for 5 minutes and then remove to serve!

My roommates and I shared this great dinner with a beautiful salad made by Alyssa and cupcakes made by Phong!

So proud of myself!  This was so delicious.  The blend of flavors is perfect and the crust is buttery and flaky, more like a croissant then a pie.

Yay! Yay! Can't even express how excited I am that this turned out well.

Here is the link to the original post: http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2010/06/zucchini-and-ricotta-galette/

I promise to write soon about the other two recipes that I skipped to write this one!

As always, thanks for reading and check back soon.

-Liz

Cooking from the Garden Round 2 : My first pesto!

Hello!  This is the second post I am terrifically behind on writing about using basil from my garden.  I made pesto!  I love pesto and never tried to make it before.  But now I have so much basil and a great food processor.

For this recipe I just googled basil pesto and picked the first one I liked.  As usual, the link will be at the bottom of this post.

For ingredients it is pretty simple.  Lots of basil, garlic, pine nuts, olive oil, salt, parmesan cheese.  Yum.

First, mince the garlic.  Easy.

Measure out the basil.  Two cups of basil is a lot more basil than I originally thought!

Grate some cheese, dump everything but the olive oil in the food processor.

Turn it on to start blending, slowly adding oil until everything is incorporated.

Blend until smooth and done!  Delicious pesto!  Made a lot less than I was expecting, but still delicious.

Pour over your favorite pasta.  I chose to boil up some cheese tortellini and it turned out amazing.  I am super proud and will definitely be making this again as my basil continues to (hopefully) flourish!

Here is where I found the recipe: http://www.chow.com/recipes/24530-basic-basil-pesto

As always, thanks for reading, more to come tomorrow night most likely!

-Liz

Cooking from the Garden! Caprese Salad with Peaches

Hello!  As always, sorry for the lag in posting.  What I am writing about tonight I made over a week ago on last Saturday, I've just been busy/forgetting to post, so sorry.

Anyway... this post and the next are all about the basil from my garden!  I originally planted two basil plants, one unfortunately died early on, but the other is growing like crazy.  So much basil!  Thus I had to make some of my favorite basil dishes: Caprese salad and pesto.

First, this post is the caprese.  Literally one of my favorite foods on earth.  Usually I make it traditionally with tomato, mozzarella, basil, salt, pepper, olive oil, basil vinaigrette.  This time I found a recipe online for the same thing, but including peaches.  Yummy!

To start you chop up the ingredients.  I cut the tomatoes in some nice thick slices,

the peaches the same way,

and the mozzarella the same (you can buy this pre-sliced if you wish).

Then put it all together!  I layered tomato on the bottom, then peaches, then cheese, then basil.  Then I realized I needed a bigger plate!

Sprinkle with however much olive oil, balsamic, and salt and pepper as you wish.

And enjoy!  Super delicious, super easy, and no heat involved!

Looks beautiful too!

For the link to the original blog I found this on look here: http://iowagirleats.com/2013/07/16/peach-caprese-salad/

As always, thanks for reading, more to come!

-Liz

Fajitas, Guacamole, and a Garden Update!

Hello!

This weekend Robert and I made a delicious dinner of chicken fajitas and guacamole!

They turned out super amazing, especially for only the 3rd time I/we have ever made them.  There is no written recipe for this online or anything, so I will type it all out here.

First off, ingredients.

For the guacamole:

Avocados (however many you want), 

tomatoes (we used 1), 

about half an onion (a little too much for my taste, but whatever you feel like will be good), 

lime juice to taste.

You could also add salsa or some other spice or cilantro to it if you would like.  

We make it differently every time.

For the fajitas:

Chicken breasts (however many you want), 

green peppers (we used 1), 

the other half an onion, 

a marinade from the store made just for fajitas (found in the marinade/salad dressing aisle), 

cheese to sprinkle on top, 

and tortillas of course.

Since there were two cooks in the kitchen we were able to split up duties, Robert making the guac while I chopped the veggies for the fajitas.  So whatever order you want to do the first steps is up to you.  I would recommend making the guacamole first and setting it aside in the fridge so the flavors can meld before enjoying.

To make the guacamole first you cut the avocados in half and scoop out the insides.

Dice up the onion, add it and the lime juice to the bowl.  Mash, mash, mash.

Then you can add the tomatoes and whatever else you might mike and mix it all together.  Set in the fridge until ready to serve.

On to the fajitas.  There are a couple of ways you can do this.  You definitely need to cut the pepper and onion into thin strips.

The way you do the chicken is up to you.  Basically at some point the breasts need to be cut into strips and at another point cooked to not-quite-done in a pan and it's up to you what order that happens in.  You can either cut when raw and then cook already in the strips, or cut whole and then cut into strips.  I prefer the first method.

Robert was the designated chicken-cutter!

All ready for the pan.  

We cooked them in a saute pan with a bit of olive oil and a bit of butter, a few minutes on each side.

Then you remove those from the pan and cook up the peppers and onions, sauteing until pretty much fully cooked.

When almost done you add the chicken back in and smother in the fajita sauce.  Totally your preference as to how much sauce you want to use.

Let cook for a few more minutes, stirring to cover everything in sauce.  Then you're done!  Heat up your tortillas for a couple of minutes if you'd like (I always do).

What a delicious spread this turned out to be!

Really, really happy with how these turned out.

On a side note, the garden is going like gang-busters.  Growing like crazy and really starting to produce.

The main box with tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, and zucchini/yellow squash:

Side boxes with extra tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, and rosemary:

And the last box with the herbs: basil, rosemary, thyme, and  cilantro.

This was the harvest from today!  Two zucchini, two cucumbers, basil (I may attempt pesto this week!), and tomatoes that weren't ripe, but fell off the vines as we were cleaning up and weeding the garden.

Yum, yum, yum; can't wait to eat all of this and use it in some recipes!

As always, thanks for reading and look back this week for some pesto hopefully!

-Liz