Easy chips

Ahh. Summer where have you gone? I can't believe that Im about to start school in fewer than two weeks! Prison!! Luckily I have gotten in some cool summer recipes, like this one- baked cheese and basil chips. What is so awesome about these chips is that you can make them really quickly, and the possibilities are endless. I actually have another recipe to tell you about, a french onion soup. But I forgot to take pictures : ( The soup turned out great, but chopping the onions was. . . interesting. I got comments telling me to freeze my onions before using them, and that seemed like a great idea. The only problem being that almost all of my cooking and baking is spontaneous. So when I started to cut my onions, the burning began. What to do!? I went outside and put on svens swimming goggles ; ) lol. This worked, except for the fact that his head is smaller than mine, and the goggles almost sucked my eyes out of my head. haha.

Baked cheese basil chips

• 2 tbs olive oil
• 30 wonton wrapers
• nonstick cooking spray
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1/2 tsp dried basil, crushed
• 1/4 cup Parmesan or Romano cheese.

Cut wonton wrappers in half making 60 triangles. Lay out on a greased baking sheet.

In a small bowl combine garlic, oil, basil. Lightly brush triangles with mixture, and sprinkle with the cheese.

Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 8 min or until golden.

Enjoy!

Foccacia with bruschetta

This is like the perfect summer food. Ever. This summer has been weird in the fact that I haven't baked that much bread. So with a couple extra hours to blow, I make focaccia from the bread bible. This bread was pretty easy except for a couple things. First off, I needed to add more flour and some vital wheat gluten to get the dough to form a loose ball. this is like the most wet dough in the whole book. You have to beat it for 20 min (thank you Mr bread machine). It is supposed to develop the gluten structure so it can develop bigger holes or something like that. So after that, your basically home free. You let it rise for 4 hours! It gets so bubbly! Mine like quadrupled in size.But all of your hard work will yield amazing results. I would definitly make this bread again and again because of how great it turned out. There were huge holes in it, and it had a really nice crisp crust. Paired with bruschetta. . .perfect.

Bruschetta

• Three large ripe tomatoes
  
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• a couple of leaves of basil, chopped
  
• 2-3 tbs olive oil
• 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
• salt and pepper to taste

Cut the tomatoes in half and scoop out the nasty seeds. Fine dice the tomatoes and combine with the oregano, basil, oil, cheese, salt, and pepper.


Focaccia
The bread Bible, with adaptations

• 3 cups unbleached flour
• 2 tsp vital wheat gluten (if you dont have this, you can substitute with more flour)
• 1/2 tsp yeast
• 2 cups minus 2 tbs water
• 3/4 tsp sugar
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 2 tbs plus 2 tsp olive oil divided
• 1/2 tsp dried rosemary
• 1/4 tsp sea salt

In a mixer, combine 1 3/4 cup flour, yeast, and water. Mix until dough just comes together. Beat dough for 20 min on med untill it is transformed into a shiny ball. If that didn't happen to you, like it didnt for me, add the 1/4 cup of flour and 2 tsp vital wheat gluten. Keep beating till a very loose ball sorta forms.

Scrape into an oiled bowl and let rise for 4 hours, or at least until it is doubled.

Cover a sheet pan with a tbs of oil. Pour dough onto the sheet and stretch the dough as much as you can w/o tearing it. If the dough is being difficult, let it rest for 10 min.

Cover pan with greased plastic wrap, and let rise untill 1 1/2 the original volume, about 1 hour.

Preheat the oven to 475 degrees.

Uncover the dough and sprinkle with remaining olive oil, rosemary, and salt. Place on bottom rack of the oven and bake for 12-13 min until golden brown

Enjoy!

Onion dill bread

I decided to make this bread recipe a little while ago. Dill and onion bread. It sounded interesting, so I went for it. I'm really glad I did, because it turned out awesome. It was pretty easy to make too. It started with a simple bread dough that I added dill to. After it rose, I flattened it and covered it in red onions.

Then the hard part came. Wile my eyes were burning and tearing from the onions I had to roll up the dough and knead it. Yeah, this sounds easy now, but wile I was kneading the dough, the onions were slipping out and making a general mess. But other than that, it was really easy to make. This bread got nice and brown after being in the oven, and the crust was not that hard. The bread had an almost buttery taste.

Now, I know what your thinking. I'm slacking with my blogging. I honestly don't know what it is. Well, first off, I'm lazy, and on top of that, I'm a procrastinator. But it seems that with the more free time I have, the less I do. Doesn't that seem crazy? Well, I won't have much free time for long, the school year is coming along, so that means more blogging. lol.

Onion dill bread
Adapted from the bread bible

• 2 3/4 cup plus 1 tbs flour
• 1/2 tbs yeast
• 1/2 tbs salt
• 1 cup warm water mixed with
• 1/4 cup dry milk
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1/2 cup onion
• 1 tbs dry dill

Combine 2 1/3 cup flour and the yeast. Then add the salt. Then stir in the water/milk and oil. Knead for 5 min adding is little remaining flour as possible. Cover with inverted bowl and let rest for 20 min.
Knead for another 5 min untill elastic.

Transfer the dough into an oiled bowl and oil the top. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise untill doubled, about 1 1/2 -2 hours.
Scrape dough onto a floured surface and press into a large rectangle. Sprinkle ontop onions. Roll up, then knead the dough.

Press into a rectangle and roll up tightly and tuck the ends in. Plate seam side down on the countertop and cover with plastic wrap. Let relax for 30 min.

Form dough into rectangle...again. Your can either roll it up tightly to form a loaf, or you can shape it into a batard.

Set on parchment lined baking sheet and cover loosly with plastic wrap. Let rise until doubled. 30 min-1 hour.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Have an oven sheet on the bottom of the oven while preheating

Slash the dough and place in oven on lowest shelf. Toss 1/2 cup of ice cubs on the tray on the bottom of your oven. Close door immedietly.

Bake 30-35 min untill golden brown. Half way through baking, turn sheet around to ensure even cooking.

Blueberry pie

My family goes crazy when its blueberrie season. They have this obsession with blueberries that I just don't understand. I hate blueberries. To me, blueberries are like these little nasty blue tomatoes (which I also hate) that are sour and filled with crap. But for some odd reason, I love blueberrie pie.

The only problem being, that I had to pick my own blueberries in order to make pie, and it happened to be during a thunderstorm. I almost got struck by lightening a couple of times, but it was worth it. This pie was crazy good.

I had trouble deciding between blueberrie pie, or like a crumble. I decided to combine them.

This was definitly one of my better ideas, because it was amazingly good! There was some extra blueberries and crumble mixture, so I made some in ramakins.

Blueberrie pie/ crumble

crust: (9")

• 1/3 cup plus 1 tbs butter
• 1 cup flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tbs sugar
• 4-5 tbs cold water

Cut butter into flour, salt, and sugar mixture until the particles are the size of small peas. Sprinkle water a tablespoon at a time untill mixture comes together. Gather pasty into a ball, and flatten into a disk. Let chill in the fridge.

Blueberrie mixture:

• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup flour
• 1/2 tsp cinn
• 4 cups blueberries
• 1 tbs lemon juice
• 2 tbs butter
• Heat oven to 425 degrees. Prepare pastry. Mix sugar, flour, and cinn (optional). Stir in blueberries. Turn into pastry lined pie plate. Sprinkle with lemon juice and dot with butter. Cover with crumb topping -->
  Cover the edges of your pie with aluminum foil to prevent burning. Remove the last 15 min. of baking. Bake until crumble is golden brown, 35-45 min.
  
  Crumb topping:
  Baking and Books
  
  
• 1 1/3 cup flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 3 tbs sugar
• 3 tbs raw sugar
• zest of one lemon
• 1 stick of butter at room temp.

Combine ingredients with a mixer or food processor.