Pierogi.

Hello, good afternoon,

another day, another bread filled with something. This time: pierogi. Yay!
I’ll give you the basic recipe for the dough, you can come up with a filling yourself (I humbly suggest the ‘stuff from the fridge that kind of has to be eaten’ filling, a classic).

Ingredients:
makes 12

1 3/4 cups flour
1/2 tsp. salt
3/4 stick unsalted butter, very cold
1/2 cup sour cream

1 egg yolk
2 tbsps. milk

Directions:

In a bowl, mix flour and salt. Add butter in cubes and knead into crumbles, add sour cream and knead into a ball of well combined dough.

Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and put into the fridge, for at least 30 mins.

In the meantime, make the filling. I filled mine with chicken and leek, which I cut fairly small and fried for maybe 5 mins. in olive oil, then seasoned with salt and chili flakes. In any case, the filling shouldn’t be too greasy, runny, or moist. I think the little dough pockets will bake best with a rather ‘dry’ filling, so they won’t get soggy.

Preheat your oven to 400°F.

Divide the dough into 12 equal parts. Roll each portion into a circle roughly 0.2 inches thin. Place about 1 tbsp. of filling on each circle, and pinch the rims together. Make sure they are squeezed together well! Place the pierogi on a papered baking sheet.

Whis together egg yolk and milk; brush the pierogi with this mixture. Bake for about 25 mins., until golden brown. Let them sit for a couple of minuted before serving. They taste great hot, warm, and cold.
Enjoy!

See how nicely the dough puffs up? It has a really nice flaky texture, too, and the sour cream adds a tart touch, very nice. So basicall, this is nicely nice all around.

The sun came out this afternoon, and spring is in the air. Nice!
Have an awesome weekend.
xoxo, F.

Khachapuri.

Hello,

I have added all kinds of ingredients to yeast dough before, but I haven’t added yoghurt. So of course, when I heard about khachapuri, I had to give it a try.

It’s a flat bread filled with cheese. Uh, hello? How great is that?
They did turn out fabulously, I’ll definitely make them again. Great for lunch or brunch, or in between. They are pretty filling, slightly salty, and really easy to make.

Ingredients:
makes 6 small flat breads

2 cups flour
3 tsps. dry yeast
1 tsp. sugar
3/4 cup plain yoghurt
1/2 tsp. salt
about 7 oz. feta cheese
about 3 oz. mozzarella cheese
1 egg yolk
1 tbsp. milk

Directions:

In a large bowl, combine flour, yeast, sugar, salt, and yoghurt. Start kneading; add about 1/2 cup warm water one tablespoon at a time (you might need some more water, or a little less). Knead until all the ingredients are combined and you have a smooth, warm ball of dough. Leave it in the bowl, cover with a dish cloth and let sit in a warm place until the dough has risen (to about twice its original size; for about one hour).

In the meantime, cut the cheese into very small cubes, and mix them.

When the dough has risen, knead it once very quickly, and divide it into six equal portions. Roll these portions into circles on a lightly floured surface. Divide the cheese mix onto the dough circles, leaving a rim.
Pull the rim over the filling toward the middle of the circle and press it together. This should result in six oddly shaped balls. Roll these balls back into flat breads super carefully.

Preheat your oven to 400° F.

Place the breads on a papered baking sheet.
Mix egg yolk and milk; brush the breads with that mixture.

Bake the khachapuris for about 25 mins., until very lightly brown.
Let cool, and enjoy!!

See? Melted cheeses inside a light bread. I had expected the yoghurt to weigh down the dough, but it didn’t at all. I thought it made the dough really flexible, and the bread really interesting.

xoxo, F.

Whole Wheat Yeast Bread

Hello!

I have a confession to make: I don’t get no-knead bread. I’ve made it only once, and found it basically tasteless. Another confession: I also don’t get people’s problems with yeast dough. I make it all the time for pizza, rolls, bread, etc., and while some doughs turn out better than others, it’s never a big issue. Maybe it’s a cultural thing; Americans naturally have different expectations towards bread than Europeans, so they would probably find this bread I made last night not fluffy and light enough. Or maybe it’s just that my demands aren’t that high when it comes to homemade bread, because deep down I know that in my tiny oven I’ll never be able to make ‘real’ bread that rivals that from our bakery.
Anyways. We were out of bread and in no mood to go to the store again. This is what I made. This time I used a mix of whole wheat and all-purpose flour, and a mix of milk and water, but this varies depending on what I have at hand or feel like. I wouldn’t use milk in a pizza dough, for example. The rising time I give the dough also varies, depending on how much time and patience I have. I’d always give a loaf of bread more time than a flat pizza, naturally.

Ingredients:
makes one loaf

approx. 2 cups warm fluid (half milk, half water)

1 packet dry yeast (approx. 2 1/2 tsps.)
1 lb flour (half whole wheat, half all-purpose)
1 tsp. salt

3 tbsps. olive oil

Directions:

In a large bowl, combine flour, salt, and yeast. Stir well. Add olive oil and half of the milk-water mix. Stir a little with your hands, so the flour falls into the fluid and a dough begins to form. Start kneading; add fluid consecutively, and knead until you have a smooth, homogeneous ball of dough (you might not need all the fluid, or a little more). Leave it in the bowl, cover with a dishcloth, and let sit until risen (I’d say 2 hours for a bread, or more).

When the dough has risen and looks fluffy, take it out of the bowl, and stretch it into a rectangle. Form a roll that fits your loaf baking pan, and place it in it. Make sure you don’t overknead at this point. Again, let the loaf sit for a while, maybe one hour.

Preheat your oven to 400° F.
Cover the baking pan with aluminium foil (leave some room for rising), and bake for 20 mins. Remove the foil, and bake for another 20 mins. The loaf is done when knocking on it makes a hollow sound.
Take the loaf out of the pan, let cool, and eat. Enjoy!

There: snack time.

Goodbye, have a wonderful weekend!
xoxo, F.

Current Food Obsession

Howdy,

here’s what I’m eating these days:

Literally almost THE ONLY THING I have been eating for breakfast, lunch, and dinner this past week. I don’t know why, but I’m craving avocado so badly at the moment, it’s insane. And I was lucky and got some really good tomatoes at the market, and for me, this is one of those perfect combinations that don’t need more than a pinch of salt and pepper to taste just heavenly. The arugula salad on top and the bread beneath are nice additions. So, this is obviously not much of a recipe, rather a flavor recommendation; if you insist, however, here’s a how to make this:

Find yourself a slice of good bread. Spread about 1/4 of a nice avocado on it; make sure the avocado is ripe. Layer with tomato slices. Sprinkle generously with salt and pepper, and top off with some chopped arugula leaves. Enjoy!

The easiest food is the best. I could live on this stuff for another week. Maybe I will.

Eat well! And enjoy these beautiful days.
xoxo, F.

Naan Bread

Hello my dear readers!

First of all, check out this GIANT lemon:

I just had to buy it. I have a soft spot for deformed food.

But anyways, I made these naan breads the other night. Although I have to admit, hands down, that they were not as perfect as at your favorite Indian restaurant, I thought they were pretty good. And they made a nice addition to the lentils and yogurt we ate them with.

Ingredients:
makes 6

4 tbsp. plain yogurt
2 tbsp. vegetable oil
1 egg
1/4 cup milk, lukewarm

1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. sugar
1 tsp. baking powder
2 tbsp. dry yeast
3 cups all-purpose flour

2 tbsp. black mustard seeds

Directions:

Whisk the egg, salt, sugar, baking powder, yeast, oil, yogurt and 5 tbsp. milk all together in one bowl.
Pour this fluid mixture into the flour.

Stir a little, so that some flour falls into the yeast mix, and a dough starts to form. Adding the rest of the milk, knead it all into a nice, smooth dough. Cover (with a tea towel) and let rise for 30 mins.

After it has had its nap, quickly and shortly knead the dough again, and split it into six equal parts. Form these into balls, and then roll them into longish breads, approx. 1/2 inch thick.

Transfer them on a parchment-lined cookie rack. Again, let them sit and rise for another 15 mins.

Preheat your oven to 450° F. (top heat or grill)
Brush the breads with water, prick them a couple of times with a fork, and sprinkle them with the seeds.

Bake the breads (my rack held three at a time) on the highest rail in your oven, closest to the heat, for about 5 mins., then turn them over and give them another 3 mins. Watch them closely! I almost burned the first three. Enjoy while still hot.

Veggie Stuffed Bread

Hello, dear readers!

Where I am, it has been very sunny and warm for the past week, and we have been spending as much time as possible outside, sitting on park benches etc. Which, of course, requires picnic food. And this, my dears, is the perfect picnic food. I kid you not. Please try this! It is really good.
I ripped the recipe a while ago from some magazine, which one I can sincerely not reconstruct. But as usual, I adapted it a little anyways, and I am sure that this is a dish that (thankfully) turns out a little different every time it is made, depending on how much of what one has at hand. So, I’ll just tell you how I prepared it, but obviously the ingredients can vary, depending on what you like!
The recipe does take some time since the veggies have to cool before you stuff them into the bread, but it can be very well prepared in advance, and let me tell you: it is worth it!
One more thing: in my last post, I talked about how a store bought chili paste prevented me from posting the recipe in question. Well, I cheated again: I used store bought pesto, because I simply did not have the time to make my own. (I am very ashamed now.)

Ingredients:

1 medium eggplant
1 medium zucchini
2 red peppers

arugula salad; I used about three handfuls
1 big ball mozzarella
basil pesto; I used about 4 table spoons

1 regular white bread

salt, pepper, olive oil

Directions:

Wash the veggies and slice them into shapes that correspond to your bread; I used a tin loaf, so I cut my veggies into long stripes. Fry the vegetables, one kind at a time, in olive oil, seasoned with salt and pepper. I suggest frying them slowly, and on medium heat, because that results in a flavor that resembles grilled vegetables. Scrape the skin off the peppers (if you feel like it), and let everything cool on a cookie rack, so the grease can drip off.

Wash and chop the salad. Slice the mozzarella into thin slices.

Now comes the fun part: cut off the top of the bread, and carefully hollow it out (make sure to leave a ‘frame’ that is wide enough, so that the whole thing will not collapse). Then, slather the inside sides of the bread with pesto, and fill with the other ingredients in layers. When you are done, put the top back on. To serve, cut into slices. Enjoy!

Yummy! This is my kind of food.
Next up: fried risotto balls, and rhubarb cake and lemonade.
xoxo, F.