Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Great and Easy Cookies and an invented bread recipe

Since Brian kept going back for more, it seems like these cookies are blog-worthy. I found the recipe online somewhere. It's all over the internet.

1-1-1 Peanut Butter Cookies

1 cup peanut butter (I used chunky this time)
1 cup sugar
1 egg

mix together, drop spoonfuls onto baking sheet, bake 375 degrees for 10 minutes.
That's it. EASY!

I had to make cookies because I needed the oven on to create some warmth in the kitchen to help proof my bread from yesterday. I whipped up some bread to go with dinner. I couldn't find a recipe that used wheat germ and didn't use 10 other ingredients that I didn't have on hand, so I invented my own recipe and it turned out great.
Here's what I learned/did: I looked at several bread recipes that I like and found that they all use a flour to water ratio slightly over 2 and one was as high as 3, and slightly less than one teaspoon of yeast per cup of flour. Add to that the following facts:
whole wheat works best with a "tenderizer" ingredient or two
milk and honey are both tenderizers
bread really only needs water, flour, yeast, and salt
most bread also includes a bit of sugar
That's all I needed... Here's my (approximate) mix, I'm not big on measuring. :)

1 1/2 cups warm water
1/4 cup dry milk powder
2 T honey
1/2 T kosher salt
2 cups white flour
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 cup wheat germ
2 T vital wheat gluten
2 t yeast

Mix ingredients. Let rise an hour or so, form into loaves, let rise again for 40-60 minutes, bake at 375 degrees for 40 minutes. Tastes great, holds up well to spreading butter.

We got our first CSA veggie box last night. I'll be looking for good ways to prepare some lesser known veggies and possibly sharing some of the highlights.