Recipe Review 1/14/07

So, it's Saturday morning, 3:30am, and I am on the phone to the furnace guy because I have no heat. Outside temp: -20* with a -23* windchill. By 4:45am I am in my basement with the furnace guy while the Husband is upstairs sleepily wondering what is going on. Fast forward to Monday morning. I go out to start the car. But the car won't start. My battery was shot. There goes my noon yoga class and lunch with a friend. When the tow guy shows up it's the same fellow who came out two years ago when both my vehicles were dead on the same day. Funny how life works. The only appropriate action in this case is to bake chocolate chip cookies. After consuming several warm, soft, gooey cookies, I was quite content and rather full.

Here's last weeks recipes. Enjoy!

Chicken Caccatorie with Orzo (Every Day with RR, pg 66) 4

While this was listed as 30 minutes plus 10 minute prep, as usual it took a wee bit longer. For me, it was the initial cooking time for the chicken parts. In part that was my fault as I mixed four chicken thighs with two big boobies. In hindsight, I should have stuck with just thighs or all boobies.

However! This was a very tasty dish. I used homemade chunky tomatoes with garlic (thanks Kate!) and I had to sub dried basil for fresh because I forgot to buy some. Prep was pretty simple: prepare bone-in chicken (for extra flavor), fry in olive oil till nicely browned and nearly done. Remove to warm oven. Add onions and thickly sliced mushrooms and saute until soft but not mush. Stir in chunky tomatoes, tomato sauce, capers, salt and pepper. Bring to a nice simmer and add chicken back in. Simmer till ready to serve.

Meanwhile, prepare orzo pasta. Arrange nicely on plate and eat! As Rach would say, Yum-O!

Pretty simple really. This dish would be great for company because of its simplicity yet great flavors and it looks impressive. A salad and some crusty bread would round out the meal.

Sourdough Whole Wheat Bread (Bernard Claytons New Book of Breads) 3.5

The Husband has been a baking fiend lately! Back at the end of December he created his sourdough starter and lucky me, I get great fresh bread every couple of weeks. This is his forth creation off of "Harold".

Once again, the recipe starts with a "sponge" which is allowed to sit overnight. This is then combined with a mix of whole wheat flour and bread flour. The loaves are actually shaped after the dough has been mixed and kneaded and allowed to rest for 15 minutes. The one and only rise happens right in the pan - for two hours - and then into the oven for an hour.

We're still not noticing a tremendous "sourdough" taste, more of a very subtle tang, to our breads. This was also a bit on the dry side. The Husband noted that for 7 cups of flour it called for 1 1/4 cup of liquid. We did have to add more water at the end of the initial mixing process to get the rest of the flour added. The crust was a beautiful golden color and nice and crispy from the water glaze, and the crumb a medium density and texture - not real light, not really heavy. If we were to make this again, I think I would decrease some of the WW flour and up the bread flour.

Cranberry Orange Muffins (Fine Cooking, Nov?, 2007) 3.5

The Mother made the blueberry version of these back in December and they were so delicious that decided I needed to make these myself. I had some cranberries in the fridge and it was no matter to buy an orange for the zest so it was the cranberries and orange version for us. The ingredients and directions seem complicated at first glance, but as with most muffin recipes it comes together rather quickly. The neat thing about these is you intentionally fill the muffin cups very full to create the classic "coffee house" muffin where it's mostly top. Really, how can you go wrong with a muffin that's all top?

Yet, both the Husband and I thought these lacked something in the flavor department - we both thought they would be a bit sweeter or tangier between the cranberry and the orange. If I were to make these again I would probably do the blueberry version...unless I still have those cranberries to use up!