Masterpiece Sandwiches

It was leftover night again. Nobody likes leftovers unless they look nothing like the original. Today's meal used up the two big pork chops from last night and, with some home made bread and veggies, I made a delicious meal for 5!

Masterpiece Sandwiches for 4 or 5
Leftover meat - either roast beef, chicken, turkey, pork chop or pork tenderloin - 2 - 3 cups, thinly sliced
8 - 10 slices hearty bread
6 white mushrooms, sliced
1/4 green pepper, sliced into strips
2 small onions, any color, sliced
1 tomato, sliced
1 cup shredded lettuce
1 cup grated mozzarella
2 Tbsp. Ranch or Italian dressing
1 tsp. oil
Salt & pepper

1. Prepare all the vegetables and slice the meat.
2. Heat a medium fry pan. Pour oil in.
3. Fry the onions until they begin to soften.
4. Add the mushrooms and peppers to the onion and if there is room, add the meat too. Otherwise, heat another fry pan and reheat those leftovers!
5. Toast the bread, if desired.
6. When the veggies are limp, and the toast is ready, assemble your masterpiece sandwich!
7. Layer each sandwich according to people's preferences, omitting anything they find "yucky". My sandwich is built as follows:
Plate, bread, meat, onions, peppers, mushrooms, cheese, lettuce, dressing, tomato, salt & pepper, bread.
Slice and devour!

Babka (Ukrainian Easter Raisin Bread)

This one was meant to be:

• First, in the "Arts & Life" section of The Chronicle Herald (Halifax NS) Friday, April 22, 2011 paper, on page E6 there is an article titled "Baking 'Bread of Life'" with recipes for Ukrainian traditional Easter breads. They look amazing!
• Second, my husband is of Ukrainian background and remembers having these growing up but hasn't had it since he lived at home.
• Third, it was a sunny afternoon with no real goals today and I already played outside with the children for two hours.

Put it all together and voila! The perfect opportunity to try Babka. The raisin and citrus traditional bread. They said it can be baked in a coffee or juice can. I have lots of juice cans, so I made half the recipe into 3 loaves.

Here it is, straight out of my oven. I baked it with the convection on in my oven. I should not have. They ballooned up and sideways! Yikes, quite top-able. I have never baked anything in a can before.

Immediately after this photo, they all fell down! The only one that landed on the floor got snatched up real quick, cut up and eaten!

Look at me go! Part of the blurry in the photo is actually steam. This loaf was literally just out of the oven.

There were raisins, and half a dozen eggs (well, 4 yolks and 2 eggs for the 3 loaves) and lemon and orange juices and zests in this bread. It was tremendously good. What a way to celebrate Easter! (Yes, just a little early, but there are still 2 loaves we're saving for tomorrow!)

I gotta say, they look rather odd, like golf clubs or something. Thankfully, they don't taste as funny as they look.

I even thought this one looks like it wants to give someone a kiss! The other recipe in the article has just as many eggs and regular ingredients, but it does not have the citrus or raisins in it. Instead, it is a show-off bread that gets braids and crosses and roses and rosettes placed on top and glazed. It is baked in a round baking pan with deep sides. It looked prettier, but I think raisin bread is yummier, so I tried it first. Maybe you will too!

On a related note, I took up making Ukrainian Easter eggs the year I met my husband. They are called Pysanky. They are insanely time-consuming to make, so I usually only do one or two a year, if I do any at all! Here are some I've made over the years:

The blue one in the middle is the first one I ever made. I liked the little butterflies. Each of these eggs took between 2 and 4 hours to decorate. Every symbol has a special meaning. I have a pattern book of ideas that I used to make these.

If I don't see you tomorrow, Happy Easter!

Glazed Raisin Bread p. 434

OOops, I forgot to glaze the "Glazed Raisin Bread". I suppose it is not too late. We only ate half the loaf straight out of the oven!

It was so deliciously good! The raisins were soft and plump, the loaf was full of raisins and the crust was crispy and sweet. I wanted to eat more and more and more! I guess butter and eggs will do that to you! I guess I didn't press out the bubbles after the first rise quite enough, since there is a big hole through the top of the loaf. I think if I had glazed it too, I likely would not have gotten any for myself! Definately a make-again!

War Bread p. 207

This bread is called war bread because it has rolled oats, cornmeal and whole wheat flour in it, to make the more scarce white flour "go farther". I guess I did even better because I used a full cup less white flour than the recipe. That is getting to be the norm though.

The bread felt very solid as I was kneading it, and it turned into a dense loaf. I personally don't call these large loaves, but that's what they are supposed to be. The family all enjoyed this bread just fine. I thought they wouldn't like the cornmeal in it, but it hid quite well. All in all, I liked this bread. I would make it again and maybe let it rise a little longer the first time.

Raisin-Nut Bread p. 443

This should be called "Amazing Braided Raisin-Nut Bread". It mixed up beautifully, it used the amount of flour it called for, it rested and rose according to plan and it tasted light, fluffy, soft and delicious! Maybe it was the sun streaming in my kitchen that warmed the kitchen enough to make a perfect bread or maybe it was just a good recipe, but I can't say enough good things about it.

Here is what it looked like before baking. I was rising it in my sunny bay window in the kitchen. Ahhh, beautiful! Then I baked it for 25 minutes and it looked even more fabulous.

Every delicious braid filled with nuts and raisins. Then there is a glaze to top it off! What a treat. Reminds me of the Swedish tea rings my mother makes at Christmas. 

Look at that! It smelled heavenly. I didn't want to stop to take pictures - especially since it was noon.

I had to have a bite! I quickly took a picture before I devoured that piece. It was wonderful!

I've already marked this recipe "fabulous!" in the book! I hope for more delicious surprises like this as I go through the book.

Mom's Whole Wheat Flax Bread

This is the bread I grew up eating.  I made two batches yesterday, because it is still what my family prefers. It turned out beautifully, as always!

Here is what goes into 5 loaves:
Proof the yeast:
     1 cup hot water
     2 tsp. sugar
     2 1/2 Tbsp. active dry yeast
Add that to:
     6 1/2 cups hot water
     1 cup dry milk powder
     1/3 cup shortening
     1/3 cup molasses
     1 1/2 Tbsp. salt
     1/4 cup ground flax seeds
Whisk together until the shortening is melted. Whisk in:
     3 cups whole wheat flour.
Mix in with a wooden spoon:
     3 cups all purpose flour
Now mix in a bit more flour at a time until it becomes a shaggy mass that you can knead or pick up. Knead in more flour. My recipe says 9-11 cups of flour, but I just keep adding until the dough is smooth, elastic and no longer sticky and don't pay any attention to how many cups that actually is! I even have my 2 year old add the flour most days. It's fun for her and keeps her out of trouble elsewhere!
Cover, and rise in a warm spot for 40 minutes.
Punch down and divide into 5 greased loaf pans.
Rise for 40 minutes. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F, 20 minutes before baking.
Bake the loaves for 35 minutes or until golden brown on top and bottom and the bottoms sound hollow when tapped. (These times are for my convection oven).

There you have it! Enjoy.

Rich White Bread p. 41

I almost would call this "Rich Yellow Bread", since it did have a very slight hint of yellow due to the eggs in it. It turned out two beautiful looking loaves - see:

We decided it tasted rather plain. It was definately my prettiest loaf yet! I getting used to making just two loaves at a time. I used to always bake 5 at a time. It is a different experience.  I never get in as much flour as the recipe calls for and this one was no exception. I started with 2 cups of flour rather than the 3 they called for and I ended up only getting in 4 1/4 cups.  Should I be worried that the recipe called for 5 1/2 to 6 cups? anh, it tasted fine.

Buttermilk Whole Wheat Bread - p. 77

This Buttermilk Whole Wheat Bread made two nice, small loaves of tasty bread. It certainly tasted of whole wheat flour, but also subtly of the buttermilk.

It had a good texture but the top crust was a little too crispy. The recipe did warn to watch that it doesn't burn, but I didn't check soon enough! We still all enjoyed it. I loved that this recipe only had one rising - in the pan. That made for a quick loaf. I'm always looking for a good, quick loaf. I will make this one again.

Muffins, Rolls, Bread and Squares

Wow! What a day of baking. It was snowing, and I had nowhere that I had to go so I baked until lunch time. I made four recipes I've never tried before. The first recipe was Orange Cranberry Muffins from "Company's Coming Kids Cook!" page 32. They were easy enough that my 8 year old could have made them, for sure. They were delicious to anyone who likes orange and cranberry. I thought it was odd to blend up a complete orange so I grated in the rind, sectioned the orange and just used the sections and the rind. After a chat with mom, I found out I could have really used the whole orange - that it works well. So I will - next time. I like that I can send them to the peanut-free school with the children.

After the muffins, I was on to Lenora's Yeast Rolls from THE bread book, page 474. This recipe had the unexpected ingredient of mashed potato. But I've been planning to make these since I made my weekly menu on Saturday so I had some mashed potato in the fridge. I mixed them up and this is how they looked just after kneading. The recipe said to knead "until it becomes smooth and velvety under your hands." That's exactly what it did! It was so soft and velvety - beautiful.

While these rose, I mixed up "The First Loaf" recipe from page18 of the book. It was a standard, white bread recipe. While everything was rising, I played "school" with the children. My pre-schooler was the teacher. I learned some numbers today! Then I had to shape the  rolls. There were 8 types of rolls to choose from. (Growing up, I was only really familiar with pan rolls, so this choice was exciting.) I chose 4 that seemed easy and made 6 of each. The top pan has Bowknots and Rosettes, then there's Crescents and finally, Cloverleafs in the muffin tin.

I brushed them with melted butter before rising and after baking. Then we tested them. They were HEAVENLY! I could not believe how delicious they were. Was it the melted butter coating them or the potato in them? I don't know, but they were soft, delicate and absolutely wonderful! Even the ones that got a little dark on the bottom still tasted great. I did make a note for future to only bake them one pan full at a time so as not to scorch them. 

"The First Loaf" bread turned out nicely too. The recipe says it makes 3 small or 2 medium loaves. I made 2. They look lovely. Only my oldest had room to eat a piece and she said it was great.

To finish my baking I made "Chocolate Chip Squares" from "Company's Coming 150 Delicious Squares" page 123. They were exactly like making chocolate chip cookies, but easier because you just put them in a square pan. They tasted just like cookies too. We all Loved them!

Now I must go for a walk and burn off some of those delicious calories!

Old Order Amish Bread

For my first recipe, I opened the book to a random page and made the first recipe for which I had all the ingredients. (Old Order Amish Bread, page 48). As a weekly bread-maker, finding the ingredients for this bread was no problem! I even had bread flour in the pantry - not always the case. The recipe called for 5 - 6 cups of bread flour but I could not knead in more than 4 cups! No matter, though, it turned out lovely, light and fluffy. The loaves were smaller than my "usual" loaves of bread, but perfectly acceptable to my husband and 4 children. The first loaf was eaten before it was even cold! As a final note, this bread was time consuming to make, since it needed a third rising.