Pumpkin Pie Bread

I have been craving both pumpkin and gingerbread for the last two weeks so, today, I combined them and created pumpkin pie bread.

Ingredients
2 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup molasses
3/4 cup water
1 cup pureed pumpkin
1 large egg
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
Dash ground cloves

Instructions
Grease and flour a 9-inch pan. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Combine all ingredients in a mixing bowl and stir until combined (should be the consistency of muffin batter). Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake for 45-50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Chick update

We had another 5 chicks hatch on Monday, bringing the total to 11. Unfortunately, we had one not make it, which is sad but also something you have to expect.

As for bedding in the brooder, I had a lot of conflicting information. One book said newspaper for the first few days. Another book said to never use newspaper because it is too slippery and causes splayed legs. That book suggested wire. Another book said never use wire and offered a number of suggesting, saying they used fine pine shavings (Never cedar shavings since they can be poisonous). Of course one of the other books said to never use shavings because the chicks can eat it and get stopped up. All very confusing.


Since I am a pessimist, I didn't think the eggs would hatch. It seemed to me she wasn't moving them around very much. I also didn't want to believe anything would be as simple as grabbing eggs, shoving them under a broody hen, and waiting 21 days. I was therefore unprepared when Krystal went out and checked on the hen on Sunday and yelled across the yard, "We have chicks!" I first filled the brooder box with wheat straw since that is what I had on hand. It was not a good choice, but I didn't have many other alternatives. The only wood shavings we had were dumped into the big brooder box once I moved the sick chicken into it (more on the sick chicken tomorrow), so it wouldn't really be a good idea to scrape 'em back out of there to use for the chicks. The Sunday bunch seemed to move about fine in the straw, but there were two from Monday that were too weak to stand up very well. One actually kept flipping over on its back and having trouble getting back upright. So the straw had to go.

We had some newspapers that we got from Krystal's grandmother to cover the table while I was lettering the egg sign.

We still had a bit left over, so I layered the bottom of the box a couple sheets thick of newspaper and covered that with two layers of paper towel. The newspaper is to absorb the mess, the paper towel is to give them traction. I just add paper towels once the ones in the brooder get too messy.

I plan to switch to shavings in a couple days, or maybe I will just chop the straw up and save myself a trip out. I am going to switch because they seem pretty bored on the paper towel. The can't scratch in it, and they ones that could handle it seemed to have more fun climbing over and in the straw. Also with the paper towels the droppings show up so I have a problem with the chicks pecking at them. I assume one of the chickens that had trouble walking is the one that passed away. The other, the one that kept flipping over, is getting around much better now that it has the stable surface of the papertowels as support. Once that chick is up and running around I will switch out the newspaper and papertowels for something more interesting.

Now to change the subject, and to show that Krystal isn't the only one that knows how to cook from scratch, here is what I had for lunch today:

Pepperoni and Mushroom pizza on homemade dough

We also finished off the batch of pita she made on Sunday so I made another batch so we could have our last bit of greek leftovers tonight.


Making pita is definitely a PiTA, but hummus and pita chips are such an awesome solution to the 3pm blahs that I put myself through it. I will most likely have to make another batch tomorrow since we ate half of today's batch for dinner.

-Matthew

A Day of Cooking

For some reason I decided to be productive on Sunday, don't ask me why. I had a long laundry list of things that needed to be done and was having some problems deciding what I should do first. Chandler, as wives often do, made the decision for me. Sundays are often days she spends in the kitchen cooking up some vittles for the upcoming week. This Sunday morning she didn't quite feel well enough to tackle any big cooking jobs so I thought I would try it.

First was lunch for the upcoming workweek. I made two big dishes of Cheeseburger Macaroni based off this Betty Crocker recipe, which I tripled and added two pounds of beef (Next time, I think I'll double it and use a pound of macaroni and a pound of beef). Chandler usually makes this and starts with a béchamel sauce but, lacking her culinary talents, I wanted something a little more basic. This was my first time making Cheeseburger Macaroni from scratch. I had made it plenty of times previously using Hamburger Helper and a family size box of mac & cheese but that didn't fit in with our goals of avoiding convenience foods and building recipes on a more elemental level. It made 18 12oz servings and does quite well in a thermos.

Once I was done with Cheeseburger Mac, I moved on to take another stab at bread baking. I hadn't tried again since the first time, which was mostly a negative experience.

I had been reading on HT about whole wheat bread baking and a few people mentioned working the dough longer for whole wheat to get the gluten going. I tried that this last time and it was a good workout but the end product wasn't really any better. The bread still did not rise as much as it should and was very dense. Since I had worked the dough much longer this time, I may have mixed in too much flour, but I think the problem was the yeast. We are still experimenting with the recipe and I think we made a miscalculation on how much we should use or I should have just let it bloom longer.

Though the bread turned out heavy and is most likely destined for life as croutons, I did have one success. The recipe we use makes 4 1.75lb loaves with dough left over. I am more apt to blame the yeast than the flour for the disappointing texture of the bread simply because this is the first time that either of us ended up with 4 of the 1.75lb loaves and I still have over a pound of dough left. I took the recipe creator’s suggestion and made Schnecken, which is a nutty sweet roll. Those were absolutely awesome! Easy to make: just butter, chopped nuts, brown sugar, cinnamon, and your dough, but amazingly tasty. The brown sugar and butter gave the nuts a nice gooey caramel covering. I can't wait to make them again the next time we need to make the bread.

Adventures in Bread Baking: Bake Harder

Two weeks ago, Fenrirwulf tried baking bread from a step-by-step recipe that he found on the internet. The bread looked really pretty in the pans and it smelled really nice baking but we had some problems removing the loaves from the pans and the taste of the bread was also flat and a bit bitter.

I augmented the recipe yesterday and added 1/4 cup honey and 2 tbsp of salt to the recipe instead of what was listed. The bread rose nicely (I turned the oven on to preheat and sat the dough in a container on the stovetop so it was plenty warm this time).

I didn't get the four 1.75 pound loaves and one 1.25 pound loaf that I should have. Next time, I'll probably work in more flour...maybe one to two cups more. I had to have Fenrirwulf shape the loaves for me because I was getting very frustrated because I was trying to make bread in a very limited amount of time.

We sprayed the pans with Baker's Joy spray and they came out beautifully this time.

We tasted the bread last night and it tastes much better. Not at all bitter. But, it still needs more honey and more salt. I'll probably add 1/2 cup honey and 3 tbsp of salt next time.

Adventures in Bread Baking

So for some reason, I decided I wanted to bake some homemade bread on Sunday, from scratch, even went as far as to forgo the bread machine. The bread machine is fine when you just need to dump some ingredients and forget about them, but once you slice it, half the slices are mangled due to the mixing blade. Also the shape leaves something to be desired, the slices are two big to use two slices for a normal sized sandwich, but yet too small to cut in half for a serviceable one. Anyway, me not being a baker, I was a little surprised out how well it turned out. I followed the instructions at http://biology.clc.uc.edu/fankhauser/Cheese/Bread/BREAD_whole_wheat.htm and they were pretty clear cut and accurate. There were a few snags. First, due to Chandler being hot-natured and me being a cheap bastard, we keep the thermostat at a balmy 63 degrees. Not very friendly to the beasties that make bread rise. It only rose about half of what I the pics on the website suggested it should. Also, the taste is rather flat, Chandler says it needs salt and sugar and I agree. She thinks she can correct it, but only time will tell. Oh yeah, also, 3 out of the 4 loaves stuck to the pans. I brushed them with oil as suggested, but either that doesn't work or I misunderstood. The one non-stick pan I used (yes, Teflon is the spawn of Satan) made a pretty nice loaf if somewhat small. Despite all these minor imperfections, I am quite happy with how it turned out. Fankhauser's instructions on how to shape the loaves were perfect, each one came out with a nice, smooth top. The recipe as a whole came together quickly and easily, which is surprising due to my past record with baking. I am not a bad cook, I am just bad at following recipes. I preform a more freeform atmosphere where I can substitute at my whim. A big pot of chili is pretty forgiving, (I have yet to formulate a true recipe for it), but baking not so much. I ripped the bottom third off of one loaf trying to get it out of the pan. I think that loaf's destination may be croutons, something else I want to try at home. The other two that stuck are salvageable, but given that dull, lack-of-salt taste, they may end up also as croutons, or bread crumbs, or the ever-noble garlic toast.
I am actually eagerly awaiting my second go at this whole wheat bread recipe. All I am waiting on is an excuse to use up the first four loaves, and a recipe correction from Chandler. Other than her adding salt and sugar (that being in the form of honey and/or molasses) we will let the dough rise in the oven on its lowest setting next time. I will also be more careful about greasing up the pan, but whether I will resort to Baker's Joy or the old standby of Crisco, I think I will leave the decision to the heat of the moment.