Guest Post: no knead bread

Hi guys. Today I have one of my best friends, Tera, guest posting again for us. She's got an amazing recipe up her sleeve that I'm 100% going to try sometime soon. I'm a sucker for bread and if it's as easy as she says my house is soon to become a bakery.

Hello Bound By Love readers! My name is Tera... You may remember me from my guest post last month on meal planning. I'm stoked to be guest posting again for Lauren while she and Dave are enjoying a well deserved vacation.

Today I'm going to share one of the best bread recipes around. It's a take on the famous no knead method championed by Jim Lahey that my friend taught me to bake earlier this year. It's ridiculously easy to make and all it takes is a little forethought and a Dutch oven. Both key components! So let's get to it.

The first thing you is to possess a magical 6th sense that can predict your homemade artisan bread cravings about 24 hours before they hit. Ok, kidding but this bread does use a slow rise method so you need to let it rise for about 20 hour before baking. I usually prep the dough sometime in the evening the day before I want some bread say Saturday night for a loaf on Sunday afternoon. In a pinch you could probably get away with preparing the dough in the morning and baking that night!

In a bowl place the following ingredients and mix just until they come together:

3 cups of flour (I prefer 2 cups of bread flour and 1 cup of whole wheat but you can use any mix you want)
1/4 tsp yeast
1 1/4 tsp salt
1 1/3 cups cold water

 After the ingredients are combined cover the bowl tightly. I use plastic wrap secured with a rubber band but use whichever method works for you. Over the next 18-20 hours you'll see your dough transform into a bubbly uniform mixture that is ready to turn into delicious bread. Punch down the dough and turn it out into a floured surface. Fold the dough on itself a few times and shape it into a  ball with a distinct seam on the under side. (this will produce an opening in the bread when it bakes!) Cover the dough with the bowl you mixed it in or a floured tea towel and let it rise for another 2 hours. About an hour and a half in put your Dutch oven (you can use regular cast iron or enameled) into your oven and preheat to 450 degrees. You want the Dutch oven to heat up with the oven. When you hit the 2 hour mark and your oven and Dutch oven are piping hot pull out the Dutch oven and toss your dough seam side up into the pot. Place covered in the oven for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes remove the lid and cook for another 15 minutes. Enjoy some seriously delicious smells in your house while all this is happening.

 After 45 minutes total cooking time take your Dutch oven and delicious bread out of the oven and let it rest for 10 minutes. If you listen carefully you'll hear your bread crackling and singing to you! After 10 minutes you are free to dig in. I'd recommend eating the whole loaf immediately with a little butter because it's so tasty steaming hot out of the oven but it also will last a few days stored in a bag on the counter. It is best fresh because the crust is wonderfully crisp and a great contrast to the soft interior. After a few hours of storage the bread loses it's crisp exterior and becomes more chewy. Still delicious just not quite as perfect as when it is fresh. Now... Feel free to enjoy your yummy homemade bread as an accompaniment to a pot of homemade soup, as toast or a sandwich, anything really. You can also separate the dough into four balls before cooking to make rolls or form it into a baguette loaf if you have an oblong Dutch oven.

Lately I've been really digging it as a side to my take on the Olive Garden's Zuppa Toscana or topped with mashed avocado and a little salt. How are you going to eat yours??

Copy Cat Zuppa Toscana:

Brown two or three mild Italian sausages in a pot with the casings removed. Add one diced onion and sauté until soft. Next add two diced potatoes and 2 quarts of stock of your choice along with some crushed red pepper and Italian seasoning. Let the soup simmer away until the potatoes are tender and add one bunch of kale chopped or torn into bite size pieces and a cup of milk just before serving.

Flag Cake

My best friend Megan and I have a tradition on the 4th of July to always make a flag cake together. Usually it's a regular rectangular cake, iced, with strawberries and blueberries on the top to make the flag. But this year I decided to take it up a notch (or two).

As someone that hates to bake I was unusually excited about this long baking process. Maybe it was the fact that I had so many loved ones in town that made me willing to put in the work. I found a Betty Crocker Recipe online and was excited to start. However, after reading the instructions I was confused on how to put everything together. So in case you're more of a visual person, like I am, I found this Video for you to watch that will really help.
Nicole and I spent Friday afternoon baking, cooling, cutting, and placing the cake together. It was really fun and people were totally surprised when we cut into it.

How was your 4th?

Guest Post: Meal Prep

Morning friends, Today one of my best friends is taking over my space. I will definitely be trying out some of her tips and tricks. Thanks for being here today T.

{picking my own green beans... apparently they do grow vegetables in Arizona!}

Hello! I'm Tera and today I will be talking to you all about meal prep and planning. A big thanks to Lauren for letting me take over her blog for today. When she asked me a while ago if I wanted to guest post I was super excited but felt I didn't have anything to write about. I got to thinking and realized I love reading blog posts about meal planning and prep and I've learned a lot about it in the past year, so why not write about that?

{grocery list for the week}

A little over a year ago I moved from just outside of DC where I was a half mile from a grocery store, a mile from my office and a 5 minute drive from almost everything else I needed on a daily basis to a small town in Arizona with just a Walgreens and a Dairy Queen. In addition to that I also commute 60 miles one way to and from work. Somehow in that hour commute I don't even pass a grocery store. If I forget something for dinner one night (unless it is a lime - the gas station I pass carries those) I'm pretty much out of luck without adding an hour or so on to my drive home. I love eating healthy and being active but having so much less time was making that difficult. Between that and having less time in the mornings and evening to make meals I pretty quickly came to the realization that planning out my meals for the week and grocery shopping really efficiently on Sundays is what needed to happen.

Now I have a good routine that helps me pack my breakfasts and lunches to eat at work and get dinner on the table every night at a reasonable time. The routine is pretty basic but it seems to work for us. I read blogs and browse Pinterest regularly for meal ideas and always try to use fresh ingredients and keep processed foods to a minimum. Having staple meals and a few new ones each week handy is helpful when planning out our week. It all starts with my CSA farm box (a weekly box of fruits and veggies I get from a local farm). By Wednesday at midnight I need to have my order placed. The produce isn't necessarily the same every week so I order what looks good to me and use that as the basis for our weekly meal plan. Based on what I know I have coming in the farm box I start to put together a meal plan for the week and a grocery list on my iPhone usually on Thursday but definitely by Sunday when I go to the grocery store.

Some typical meals we have are chicken and bean bake, tacos, spaghetti squash or a crockpot meal. We also throw in a night or two of going out and usually I try one new dish a week. Once I have the list in place I look through the recipes to see what I can prep on Sunday once I get home from the grocery store. I always make hard boiled eggs for snacks at work, homemade almond milk for my oatmeal and try and prep other items for lunches and dinners ahead of time. For example, with the chicken and bean bake I can get everything chopped and seasoned and put it in the refrigerator in a baking dish covered with plastic wrap so I just need to throw it in the oven when I get home from work. I can usually also prepare a crockpot meal in the crockpot dish and put that in the refrigerator. Spaghetti squash and other veggies (like sweet potatoes or beets!) can also be baked in advance since those take 45 minutes to an hour to bake. Some other things I have made ahead are: brown rice or quinoa, baking muffins for the hubby's breakfast, putting together fruits and veggies in individual baggies for smoothies, chopping up veggies or making salads and homemade dressing for the week, making homemade nut butter or whole wheat pizza dough, baking chicken or making soup.

{making salads for lunch for the week}

{super easy homemade salad dressing}

Making your own dressing is so quick, is usually healthier than bottled dressings AND tastes fresh and delicious. The basic recipe is just an acid and a fat of some sort. In this case equal parts lemon juice & olive oil. I just put the ingredients in a tupperware or mason jar and shake before using. I added dijon mustard and dill to kick it up a notch this time. You can also use balsamic vinegar instead of lemon juice and easily make healthy creamy dressings like ranch using greek yogurt. Try this recipe for a simple honey mustard!

grill out-cali pizza recipe



{cali pizza}

By no means are Dave and I grill masters (especially me as I get lost after turning on the propane) but we're definitely getting better. The thing I love about Florida is that it's pretty much grilling weather all.year.long. We haven't taken advantage of that as much as we should but going in to summer we're starting off with a bang. We've used our grill for chicken, steak, onions, green peppers, and corn on the cob.

My parents invited us over a couple nights a go for cali pizza on their grill. It's a summer staple with my family and when we all lived in DC, my girlfriends would come over and have so much fun creating our own pizzas and enjoying being together.

 

 

 CALIFORNIA PIZZA RECIPE by Ina Garten

For the dough:

 

1 1/4 cups warm (100 to 110 degrees F) water

2 packages dry yeast

1 tablespoon honey

3 tablespoons good olive oil

4 cups all-purpose flour, plus extra for kneading

2 teaspoons kosher salt

 

After letting the dough rise, you place it on the grill, flip to the other side, drizzle it with olive oil and add your ingredients until they're melted and yummy. I'd suggest checking out the full recipe on the Food Network site here.

 

My favorite toppings:

 

mozzarella cheese

feta cheese

prosciutto

mushrooms

basil-lots of fresh basil

cherry tomatoes

red onion

 

I hope you'll try out this recipe at some point in the summer. It's an easy way to add a delicious meal to your cooking repertoire. And it's a crowd pleaser because everyone can customize their own. Even picky ol' Dave loves cali pizza nights.

spring salad

Thanks for listening yesterday. I just think sometimes we, as bloggers, need to talk about some issues and serious things. I'm all for decorating, crafts, and pretty things but sometimes life is sad and difficult and as community we should be here for each other during those times as well. Please still pray for the McConnell family.

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Dave and I went to California Pizza Kitchen the other night and I wasn't in the mood for such a heavy meal so I got a Cobb Salad. Sometimes I forget just how good salads can be. You may remember my slight obsession with Nicole's pear salad a few months ago, and I have a tendency to stay stuck on something good without any variation (no wonder I get sick of things so fast). Anyhoo I'm all about these fresh ingredients that you add to this particular salad. It just screams spring to me-even though it's nowhere to be found here in DC still.

Have you ever wondered why it's called a Cobb salad? I always thought it was about corn on the Cobb, however corn is absent from the salad. So I got curious and since I'm planning on eating multiple of them this week I looked into it. It was created in 1949 at the Brown Derby Restaurant in Hollywood. There seems to be some discrepancy about who actually invented it.  One version is that it was invented by the owner of the Brown Derby Restaurant Robert Howard Cobb in a late night kitchen raid. Apparently Cobb hadn't eaten until midnight and so went to his restaurants kitchen and threw all these leftover ingredients together and Voila the Cobb salad was born. The other version is that the Executive Chef, Robert Kreis invented the salad and named it after the owner. Either way it's delicious and I'm happy it was invented.

A good way to remember the ingredients is to use the acronym below.

 Next time I am definitely planning on adding bacon to it (everyone loves bacon), but since we were out at the house when I prepared these lunches I did without. It was still delicious though. I really think it's the blue cheese that makes it so tasty.

Do you like Cobb Salad? What's your favorite type of Salad to make and eat? For the original Cobb Salad recipe and dressing click here.

http://www.kitchenproject.com/history/CobbSalad.htm#original

Enjoy!

Snow Day and recipes

Yesterday I woke up to a SNOW day! The Federal Government had closed down and I found myself with a glorious day ahead of me of nothing to do. And to make it better my hubby had the day off too. After a delicious home made breakfast made by Dave, I went out and got my hair trimmed and decided on bangs too.

When I got home I spent a good while in the kitchen. There were a couple things on the menu for the week that I could get out of the way. First, I made Dave and my favorite chicken pot pie. Check out the recipe, it seriously is so easy that I've made it a bunch of times this winter. I don't add the vegetables in the pie because Dave doesn't like them, so I add them to my plate separately.

Then I decided to tackle BBQ pork sandwiches. 

Pulled Pork BBQ Sandwich

Ingredients:

3 lb pork shoulder

salt

pepper

garlic powder

sage

bottle of BBQ sauce

rolls

• Pull out your crock pot. Take the pork shoulder and rub with salt, ground black pepper,  garlic powder and sage. 
• Place pork  in the crock pot with only 1 cup water. You can use beef broth but it tastes just as good with water.
• Let it cook on low 6-8 hrs or on high for 4 1/2 hours until its fall apart perfect with a touch of the fork. 
• Take it out and let it sit for 10 minutes and discard the cooking liquids. Clean the crock pot during this time.
• Shred it with 2 forks or your fingers. 
• Place back in the cleaned crock pot, coat it with 1 bottle of BBQ sauce, mix it together and let it sit for 1 more hr on low. 

Enjoy!

Mini Apple Pies

Usually when I attempt a Pinterest recipe it ends in an epic fail but this one was fantastic. Not only was it delicious (seriously people raved about it at work), but it was so easy to make. I'm all about simple recipes especially when it comes to baking.

I found this recipe on Pinterest that was originally from the blog Little Bit Funky. For step by step instructions click the link.

Mini Apple Pie

Start by cutting up eight cups of apples into small 1/2in bits.

Mix the apples with:
12 tablespoons of flour
1 1/2c of sugar
4 heaping teaspoons of cinnamon

You will also need: 
4 tablespoons of chilled butter cut into 24 equal portions.  
two boxes of pilsbury pie crusts 

Unroll your first pie crust and cut several circles out, make enough for your cupcake pan. To make the circles I just used a cup. Line each cup of your muffin tin with a tiny pie crust. Gently fill the crusts with your apple mixture so that they are slightly mounded. Then add the butter to each mini pie. After that use the excess dough and add them to the top. I personally like to add as much dough as I can because the crust is my favorite part. Then brush melted butter before putting them in the oven.

Bake at 400 for about 20 minutes. I would check them at 2-4 minute intervals after about 16 minutes in the oven. The crust will be a little browned on the top. Let cool before using a knife around the edges to get them out. I tend to have problems getting food out in perfect pieces when they're in muffin pans but honestly if you pam the pan beforehand and let them cool you'll have no problem. They come out in great shape and make perfect little bite size treats.

Enjoy!

Pear Salad

I've never been one to like pears and it's probably because I honestly don't think there was ever any in our house growing up. I tried one for the first time a summer or two ago while walking around Eastern Market in DC and liked it ok but had no real urge to buy any for myself. That all changed during girls night last week.

via

Nicole made a delicious pear salad and I was sad I had to share it with everyone. I wanted to stab the other girls with my fork so they wouldn't eat it. Don't worry, I didn't do that because my parents taught me table manners. Actually they made us pretend that we were eating dinner with The Queen (usually) so that we were on our best table manner behavior. {Like the Queen would ever come to dinner at our house, and if she did she would be so disgusted that I SOMETIMES like to rest my forearms on the table...pshaw} Anyhow, Nicole made this salad and I wanted to share since apparently pears are in season (who knew?!), a fact that I would know if I was privileged enough to grow up eating pears.

Pear Salad with Walnuts:

1 bag spring mix salad
2 pears,  thinly sliced
1/4 cup walnuts
1/2 cup crumbled blue cheese
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
3 tablespoons olive oil

These are just rough estimates for a full bag of salad, so feel free to play around with how much of everything you add if you're making an individual salad. Enjoy!

Decadent Cupcakes

He ate 9!

Last week Nicole and I had a bake fest. One of our bosses is leaving and we wanted to make something special for his last official day. He likes chocolate so we decided to something a little different than the normal cupcakes we bring in. We made fudge cupcakes (from a box), once they were cool we cored the middle of the cupcake and added a filling.Then we made ganache and dipped the cupcakes in. They ended up looking amazing and everyone at work gobbled them up.

We made two different cupcakes. One was chocolate with chocolate fudge filling and a ganache topping. For that one we just used Smuckers fudge you find in the ice cream section....but don't buy the shell kind because it gets hard when out of the bottle. 

For the other cupcake it was a chocolate cake with peanut butter filling, ganache frosting, and mini Reese's cup cut in half on top.

For the filling:

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1 cup creamy peanut butter
• 1 1/4 cups sifted confectioners' sugar

Look at that filling!

I was a little worried about attempting to tackle ganache because I'm not great at baking, but it's really simple. You basically just melt chocolate and heavy cream in a pan over water. Click here for instructions!

Hopefully this will encourage you all to try something a little out of your comfort zone. I know that next time I'm excited to tackle something NOT in a box. Home made all the way....whaaat?!?!?! 

Hot Crab Dip

                 HOT CRAB DIP


                             8 oz cream cheese
                             1 Tbs horseradish
                             1 tsp grated onion
                             1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
                             1 can crab meat


Cream together first 4 ingredients then stir in crab meat.Heat for 15 min at 350 or until  warm or microwave. Serve with crackers or baguette slices.



Tonight some of the girls are coming over for a girls night and I'm making my (ok so it's my dad's) famous crab dip. It's easy to make and DELICIOUS. I could eat it all myself if I didn't have any self control. I always double the recipe because it tends to disappear. We're going with all appetizers because it's so much easier than having to come home from a long day at work and make a full meal for everyone. I always tend to fill up on appetizers anyway, so hopefully that's what will happen. 

Hope you use the recipe. It's helpful to have a gem in your back pocket for holiday parties, or unannounced get togethers!

Food for thought

Yesterday I met with a nutritionist, it was really helpful and informative. At first I'm pretty sure the nutritionist was a bit shocked that someone of my weight was coming in to talk about healthy eating, she usually deals with people that are overweight or have diabetes. I went in to talk to her because at this point in my life my metabolism is slowing down and so far I've been lucky enough to not have to think about what I eat.

my plate

I dont' think I'll always be so lucky so it's better to get into the habit of healthy eating before it's too late. Basically I learned portion sizes matter, I should be eating wheat pasta and bread instead of white, I need to be drinking milk, and there are healthier ways to snack. I also learned that I should be eating much more fruit and vegetables, olive oil is best to cook in, and margarine with canola oil is the best choice. My diet isn't the only thing I should be improving upon either. Exercise is important, whether it's walking 3 times a week or finding a sport to play (tennis!) on the weekends. The key is to get my heart rate up for 20 minutes or more, and to realize I don't have to go to the gym at 4:30 in the morning and get on the machines or take crazy classes. I need to find a good balance for myself with eating right and getting out and exercising. Hopefully I can do that and still enjoy meal time.

Schnitzel

Last week Dave and I had our friends Nicole and Jason over for schnitzel night. When my parents lived in the area they would make it, and my friends and I would all come over. Now that they've moved, I figured I'd have to make it myself, and honestly I didn't do too bad. With Nicole's help (we let the boys play x-box) dinner was pretty easy to make.

Dave had to bike to the grocery store (because, you know, it's helpful to not have frozen pork when needing to cook right away and pound out the meat).

  Below is the process of how to make the meal and the final schnitzel product with spaetzle (a German noodle), asparagus, and some lemon wedges.

To have your own delicious schnitzel night follow these easy steps:

And you know it's easy if I can do it

Boneless pork chops or veal (we use pork)

pound meat between plastic to fairly thin

salt and pepper each side

dredge each piece in flour

then egg wash ( beaten eggs- number depends on how much you are making) no need to add water or milk

dredge in bread crumbs

Fry in oil on the stove

If you want you can keep warm on baking sheet lined with paper towels in oven at 200 degrees

Thank you to my dad for always making the schnitzel for all of us and for mom for sending me his recipe so I could copy it. You two are the best.