A British Cob

A cob is simply a crusty round loaf of bread. The name "cob" comes from England, it's Anglo Saxon for "head." I guess the theory is that the round loaf looks like the shape of a head when baked.

I enjoy making bread in this cob form, it cuts down on the amount of pans I have to wash later. Plus, it's a lot of fun to handle these round loaves as opposed to our (USA) traditional rectangular loaves. To get this round shape you simply bake it on a cookie sheet instead of in loaf pan.

This bread has become a family favorite around here. I found the idea for this recipe in a baking book called The Best-Ever Book of Bread. Through some trial and error I finally settled on this adapted recipe. It is especially lovely served warm, just from the oven for dinner. It also makes a great tasting sandwich bread.

Just a note for those of you who may be new to baking with yeast (as I was just about a year ago): Yeasted breads take a bit of practice. It's wholly different than baking up a quick batter bread. The whole process (kneading, rising, resting) will take you on a sharp learning curve. I recommend buying or borrowing a good bread baking book. It will help you visually, showing you various steps, and it will also help you to troubleshoot for when something goes wrong as it usually will until you've had more practice. Don't give up. Bake some bread once a week and before long you will be a pro!

Makes 1 round loaf

1 1/4 c milk
2 Tbsp butter
2 tsp salt
2 Tbsp sugar
2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast (or one packet)
1/4 c lukewarm water
3 c whole wheat flour
1 c all purpose unbleached flour

Topping:
2 Tbsp water
1/2 tsp salt
rolled oats

Scald milk in a small saucepan. Remove from heat. Stir into the milk the butter, salt and sugar. Set aside until cooled to lukewarm.

In a small bowl, stir together the yeast and 1/4 c water. Set aside

In a large bowl, mix both flours together and reserve about a cup to use later during kneading. Make a well in the middle of the flour. Add into the well the cooled milk mixture and the yeast mixture. Stir until the dough starts to pull away from the sides of the bowl.

Flour a board (or whatever surface you will be doing your kneading on) with some of the reserved cup of flour. Turn out the dough onto this floured surface. Knead the dough for 10 minutes, until it's smooth and elastic, using the reserved flour as needed on your surface. Place dough in a large oiled bowl, turning dough over once to coat. Cover with damp, lint-free towel and leave to rise until doubled, about 1 1/2 hours.

Punch dough down and turn out onto a floured board again. Knead another few minutes, about 3-5.


With the dough on the board, shape into a round. Press your lightly fisted hand into the center of the round. Then pick up the dough, turning it over so the pressed side is on the bottom and lightly cup and shape it into a compact ball shape. **see photo at side**
 
Place dough ball onto the middle of a floured cookie sheet. Cover with a large inverted bowl and leave to rise for 30-45 minutes.

For the topping: Mix water and salt together. Brush over the top of the risen dough and sprinkle with rolled oats.

Bake in a preheated 450° oven for 15 minutes. Then reduce heat to 400° and bake for another 20 minutes, until the cob feels firm and when thumped on the bottom, sounds hollow. Or until a thermometer in the middle reads 205°-210°. Cool on a wire rack or slice into it and enjoy warm.

Spiced Pear Cake

This cake is the perfect thing to make with all the fresh, ripe, local pears that are in season right now. It is so wonderfully divine that I was hard pressed to share this with my family. I could have happily ate the whole thing myself. It also makes for a lovely treat for breakfast, if you have any left over, that is.

I used ripe Bartlett pears for this cake since that is what I had on hand. It made this cake very sweet and soft. Bosc pears would very work well, they hold their shape when cooked and do not have that candy sweetness that ripe Bartlett's do. Any pear variety will work.

Serves 10

11 Tbsp unsalted butter, softened
1 1/4 cups packed dark brown sugar
2 pears, peeled, cored and sliced
2 cups all-purpose unbleached flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp ground allspice (or nutmeg if you prefer)
1/4 tsp salt
2 lg eggs
2/3 cup milk

Place 3 Tbsp of the butter in a 9-inch round cake pan. Place the pan in the oven while preheating it to 325°. When the butter is melted, remove the pan from the oven. Sprinkle with 1/4 cup of the sugar. Place pear slices in a fan pattern in the bottom of the pan, overlapping if needed.

In a medium sized bowl whisk to combine the flour, baking powder, cloves, allspice and salt. Set aside.

In a large bowl with an electric beater, beat remaining 8 Tbsp butter with the remaining 1 cup of sugar until smooth and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Add half the flour mixture and mix it in. Then mix all the milk, followed by the remaining flour. Beat just until smooth. Pour batter over the fanned pear slices in the pan.

Bake the cake at 325° for 1 hour, or until a tooth pick inserted in the center comes out clean. Run a thin knife around the edges of the cake then invert onto a plate. Remove the pan, replacing any pear slices stuck to the pan, and allow to cool slightly.

Serve warm with freshly whipped cream if you like.

Meatball Kale Soup

I was in the kitchen the other afternoon. It was a Thursday, with my market shopping Saturday still two days away. I was looking at what dwindling fresh produce I had left in the refrigerator and trying to come up with something for dinner. One bunch of kale, a couple turnips, a few carrots and a pound of hamburger meat. Hmm.... So this is what I came up with. I was delighted with my results, it was so good! My husband, who had been working late and hadn't watched me prepare it, even had to ask me where I got the meatballs; he said they looked so perfect and were so tasty that I must have bought them from the store. I smiled and said,

"No store bought, factory made, frozen meatballs for my family, I'm a homemaker and I have plenty of time to actually cook for my family."

Pair this soup with some nice thick slices of freshly made whole wheat bread and you've got the perfect Autumn dinner for your table.

A note about the meatballs: The one pound of hamburger made 33 one inch meatballs, way too many for my soup to handle. I ended up putting 17 meatballs into my soup (a little less then what my recipe says below because I have two little boys who don't eat much.) While the soup was simmering, I cooked up the rest of the meatballs in a skillet and then froze them for use in a future meal.

Another note about the beef base: I keep a jar of beef base in my refrigerator. I make a lot of soups and other things that require broth. I have found the Better Than Bouillon paste products to be the best tasting broths or stocks out there, hands down 100% better than something out of a can. I find this at my local Costco; it carries the organic reduced sodium base that I like the best.

Soup Serves 4

Meatballs:

1 lb. ground hamburger
1/2 cup fine dry bread crumbs
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp paprika
1 tsp dried thyme
a few sprinkles of garlic powder
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 lg egg


Into a large bowl, put the hamburger, bread crumbs, spices and Worcestershire sauce. In a small, tall-sided bowl, beat the egg until good and frothy with a wire whisk. Add the egg to the hamburger and mix up all ingredients with a fork.

With clean hands (free of wedding rings and such) pinch off just enough hamburger mixture to measure about an inch. Without putting pressure on it, roll the hamburger in a circle between the palms of your hands until you have a uniform 1 inch round meatball. Place onto a large rimmed cookie sheet. Repeat until all meatballs are made. You should have about 32-33 meatballs when done. Place the sheet into the refrigerator until ready to use.

Soup:

1 celery rib, chopped
3 medium carrots, chopped

1 small onion, chopped
12 c. water
8 tsp Better Than Bouillon Beef Base
2 turnips, chopped
1 small bunch of kale, well rinsed and shredded

In a dutch oven, heat a tablespoon of olive oil over medium high heat. Add the chopped celery, carrots and onion and saute them for 5 minutes. Add the beef base paste and warm, stirring, for about a minute. Then add the 12 cups of water and bring to a boil.

Once the soup begins to boil add the turnips, kale and drop in 20 meatballs. Bring back to a boil then reduce heat to a simmer and cook for 10 minutes. Stir occasionally.

Serve with a hunk of whole grain bread.

Corn, Zucchini & Sweet Pepper Saute

I came up with this recipe this summer, partly because I wanted to do something different with the sweet local corn I buy at the farmers markets, and partly because my seven-year-old son has lost his front top teeth, making it difficult to eat an ear of corn. This side dish has become a new favorite. I've made it numerous times at home, I've made it for friends and I even got my mother into making it. It has a very nice sweet and fresh flavor.

Cutting fresh uncooked corn off the cob is messy but it's so worth it. Here's how I handle this chore: get a large bowl and a short but sharp knife. Shuck the corn, remove all the silk strings. Using one hand, hold the ear of corn standing up in the bowl and with the other hand using the sharp knife, cut the kernels off, slashing straight down, rotating the cob until you get all the corn cut off. The kernels will fall down into the bowl where you want them. It's still kind of messy, you'll have corn juice all over you hands, but it's better than having corn kernels all over you kitchen counter tops, corn juice splattered all over (that was my scenario the first time I made this.)

The picture above is of the ingredients given below; I grew banana peppers this year in my garden and heirloom Italian zucchinis. The zuc variety known as Mexican squash is very tasty in this too. Feel free to change things up a bit to make things as colorful as you like. I've made this dish with a large red bell pepper with a dark green zucchini and the colors were amazing. It would be fun with a chocolate bell pepper too. Use what you like best, any fresh sweet pepper will do.

Also note: I use my enameled cast iron dutch oven for everything, including this dish. If you don't have one, use a large pan or pot with a wide bottom. The point is to saute the vegetables, not steam them, so the larger the cooking surface, the better. If you use a small tall pot the veggies will end up stewing and steaming in their own juices, giving you mush as a side dish; not at all what you're going for here. Cooked perfectly, it should be crisp yet tender.

Serves 4

2 ears of fresh sweet local corn
1 medium zucchini, chopped
2 large sweet banana peppers, chopped with seeds and membranes removed
2-4 Tbsp butter (you could do half butter and half olive oil if you prefer)

Heat your pan, pot or dutch oven over med-high heat until hot. Add the butter. When melted, add all three vegetables.

Saute, stirring with a wooden spoon, for about 5-7 minutes. Corn will start to glisten, the zucchini will be just to the tender but still intact stage, and the pepper will still have some crunch. Give it a taste to check the doneness.

Sprinkle with salt and pepper if desired.

British Scones

I love the idea of afternoon tea. I very much enjoy a cup or pot of hot black tea and tasty English tidbits. I was fortunate, years ago, to take Afternoon Tea at the Empress Hotel in Victoria, BC and it was a magical experience (even though, strictly speaking, it was not British but Canadian.) Even before, and ever since, I've enjoyed playing the lady in my own home; brewing up a pot of tea, warming up my favorite tea pot, using my best antique china and whipping up a batch of something baked to serve alongside.

I came across this recipe awhile ago on one of my trips to the local library. A favorite pastime of mine is to check out a dozen cooking and baking books and peruse them for hours at my leisure. This particular book was about a well loved tea house in a hole-in-the-wall place in New York. The woman who owns the place is a crazy wild British woman. The thing I liked about the book was the true and authentic recipes for all the British favorites. This recipe for scones was among them.


The taste and texture of these are truly delightful. The outsides have a slight crisp, with the insides being fluffy and soft, yet sturdy with a good crumb. I ate rather too many of these, they are delicious. Serve with fresh whipped cream and jam to top.

Makes 8 triangles

2 cups sifted all-purpose unbleached flour
1 tsp baking powder
2 Tbsp organic sugar
1 tsp finely ground sea salt
1 1/3 cup heavy cream

Preheat the oven to 375°.

Sift all the dry ingredients into a large bowl. Add the heavy cream and mix very gently with either your hands or a wooden spoon. Do not over mix. If the dough is very sloppy, you may add a bit of flour.

Lightly flour a board, or counter top. Using your hands, turn out the dough onto the floured surface and spread and pat the dough into a round shape, with 1 inch thickness.

With a knife, cut the round into 8 wedges. Place each wedge onto an un-greased baking sheet a few inches apart. Bake for 15 minutes, just until the scones no longer look wet in the crevices and the bottoms are golden.

Fresh from the Farm dinner

Saturday is market day for me; that is to say, the local Farmers Market. I am a happy locavore, which means I prefer to eat only local and in-season foods and I give preference to organically grown foods produced without pesticides, hormones, or genetically modified organisms. So I shop every Saturday at my local farmers market, where I know my farmers by name and rate them among my friends. One of the many benefits of eating locally produced food is that it simply tastes much better. I am in earnest here, it really does taste better. Your food is fresher and at it's peak; it has not sat on a shelf for weeks, it has no preservatives, it is fresh and straight from the earth in which it was grown.

If you have never tried a farmers market before, I highly recommend that you start now. And those of us in the Portland Metro area haven't any excuses; there are farmers markets in nearly every city every week. Find the one closest to you and go!

Tonight, I made dinner in about 30 minutes using fresh from my garden and just bought today ingredients. It was as tasty and delicious as anything you would order at a fancy restaurant. A whole lot cheaper too.

This menu requires a specialty item that I realize most of you will not have: Apricot Ginger Chutney. An Oregon City Farmers Market vendor, Diana's Delights, makes this wonderful chutney with apricots, oranges, fresh ginger, golden raisins, onions, garlic, coriander and sugar. It's amazing. You can easily substitute: use apricot jam mixed with some fresh minced onions and garlic, then add coriander and ground ginger.

Tonight's dinner: 

Golden Spiced Rib Chops

Haricot Verts

Sweet Corn

Pork Chops:

Bone-in rib chops or boneless loin chops, thawed

rubbed sage

salt & pepper

Apricot Ginger Chutney

Turn oven to broil. Rub in with your hands a sprinkle or two of sage, salt and pepper onto both sides of chops. Place chops on a broiler pan. Put in oven, 4 inches from the heat and broil for 15 minutes, turning chops every 5 minutes. Spread chops with the apricot ginger chutney and broil for 5 minutes more. Pork is done when it reaches 150°-160°.

Haricot Verts (pronounced ar-ee-co verz):

1 lb haricot verts, slender french green beans

2 Tbsp butter

1 large shallot, minced

1-2 cloves of garlic, minced

red wine vinegar

Boil green beans for 3 minutes. Green beans will be crisp-tender. If you like your green beans more tender, you may boil for up to 5 minutes, but no longer or you'll have a goopy mess. Drain and set aside. In the same pot over med-high heat, melt butter. Add shallot and garlic. Saute, stirring until garlic is golden and shallots are tender, about 1-2 minutes. Add green beans and toss around in pot for 1 minute. Add a splash or two of red wine vinegar, it will deglaze the pot and add wonderful flavor.

Sweet Corn:

Fresh ears of corn (best the day you've bought them)

water

In a large pot, half fill with water. Shuck the corn, removing husk and silk strands. Drop into the pot of cold water. Bring to a boil on high heat. Cover with a lid, turn off heat and let stand 10 minutes.

Raspberry Lemon Tart with crumble topping

If you love sweet and sour desserts, you are sure to love this one. This divine tart starts with a thick layer of sweet and flaky shortbread crust, then piled with lemon curd and raspberries, then topped with more crumbled shortbread. Pair it with a cup of coffee and you will have yourself a little slice of heaven.

This recipe comes from The Grand Central Baking Book, from the bakers at the Grand Central Bakery in Portland, Oregon. An inspiring book, one of my favorites. I actually combined two of it's recipes to make this one awesome dessert.
 
To save myself time and effort, I used a jar of lemon curd that I bought at my local farmers market. One of the vendors there makes small batch jams, relishes, chutneys and lemon curd in the authentic British way. The following recipe tells how to make the lemon curd from scratch. I suggest that you make it in advance; the lemon curd will keep in the refrigerator for up to one week.

Also, note: the picture above is of an unfinished tart, before I baked it with the crumble topping on. Once it was baked, it was so quickly devoured that I didn't get a photo. Next time.


Serves 8

Crust:
2 1/2 cup all-purpose unbleached organic flour
3/4 tsp sea salt, finely ground
1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp pure vanilla extract

Lemon Curd:
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3 Tbsp finely chopped lemon zest
4 egg yolks
6 Tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/4 cup unsalted butter
1/4 tsp sea salt, finely ground

1 pint fresh raspberries
3 Tbsp granulated sugar

3-4 Tbsp confectioners' sugar, for dusting

Preheat oven to 350°. Assemble a 10-inch spring-form pan.

For the dough:
Whisk the flour and salt together. Using a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, or a hand beater like I did, beat the butter and sugar together on medium speed for about 5 minutes, until light in color and fluffy. Add the vanilla and mix to incorporate. Reduce he speed to low and add the dry ingredients, scraping the bottom and sides of the bowl several times. Stop mixing when the dough is still crumbly. This happens quickly; the mixture will look dry and floury, then little clumps will suddenly appear. Don't over mix, or you will end up with a ball of dough that will be difficult to use.

Set aside 1 cup of the dough, then sprinkle the rest (about 2 1/2 cups) on the bottom of a 10-inch springform pan. Distribute it evenly, without pressing it. Bring the dough slightly up the sides of the pan to contain the lemon curd, then lightly press the dough to hold it in place. Refrigerate the reserved cup of dough. Bake for 25 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through the baking time. The crust should be toasty brown.

To make the lemon curd:
Combine the sugar, lemon zest, and egg yolks in a bowl or the top of a double boiler and whisk together immediately; don't delay or the mixture will coagulate. Put the bowl over a pan or the bottom of the double boiler with about an inch of lightly simmering water and whisk continuously until the sugar dissolves. Add the lemon juice and, still whisking continuously, cook for about 5 minutes. Add the butter and salt, then use a spatula to stir constantly until the mixture is the consistancy of sour cream, which will happen at about 170°.

Strain the curd through a fine mesh sieve. If you won't be using it right away, cover with plastic wrap, placing it directly on the surface so the curd doesn't form a skin, and refrigerated for up to one week.

Fill and bake:
Spoon the curd into the baked crust, smoothing with a spatula. Scatter raspberries onto the lemon curd, sprinkle with the granulated sugar. Crumble the reserved 1 cup of dough over the top. Bake for 40 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through the baking time. The berries will collapse and the topping will be slightly brown. Immediately dust the warm tart with the confectioners sugar, then let cool slightly before removing the sides of the sprinform pan.