A Baking Day

I woke up this morning in the mood to bake. At first, I was just planning to make some pizza dough from a recipe my friend Talia gave me, then I decided I would take this Sunday afternoon to make a large batch of challahs made from the simple recipe in Taste of Challah by Tamar Ansh. I also thought this would be a great opportunity to use my mixer, since it's supposed to be able to handle serious dough. Long story short, it couldn't. It did well doing the initial mixing, but as I added more flour, the machine suddenly stopped. It overheated. While on "Stir." Granted, this recipe uses 16 cups of flour. Still, I had more confidence in my mixer than it deserved and I feel let down. Oh well. I had to do the rest of the kneading by hand, which wasn't so bad because I had my trusty assistant, Diana, to help out. She was an immense help after everything had risen and we needed to roll out the dough. She's quite skilled with a rolling pin, if I do say so. The challah came out very yummy (I gave Diana one and we decided to take a taste of it) and I highly recommend it.

While the challahs were going through their final rising, we whipped up that pizza dough (very quick, very easy) and made 4 calzones which came out very tasty. I filled them with ricotta cheese and mozzarella cheese and filled 2 of them with sauteed mushrooms and onions and the other 2 with sauteed spinach and onions.

So now I'm exhausted and my kitchen is a mess, but it was certainly fun. Thanks for playing, Diana! :)

Comments

Diana!!! said…
It was a fun game to play my love ♥
November 29, 2009 at 8:50 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Strawberry Picking

Image
It's strawberry season, ladies and gents! Of course, it's almost over. And of course, while strawberry season comes to a close, I'm only just getting around to it. But yesterday I headed out to Baugher's Farm to pick them for myself.  I brought along my mom and my daughter, both of them first timers!  They basically just sat on the bench while I did all the labor, but they enjoyed the beautiful weather and the sprawling green landscape. As you can see, I got a decent amount.  Still, the pickin's were slimmer than I'd hoped. Since I don't cook or bake as much as I used to, what with this small, precious, demanding person who's entered my life, I figured I'd better freeze these babies for future use. I washed them, cut off the tops, dried them with paper towels, spread them out on a baking sheet, and stuck them in the freezer. In a little while, I'll take them out and seal them in a freezer bag. Supposedly, they...
Read more
Ok, I was supposed to post by this past Sunday and didn't. Sorry to all of my avid readers! (All two of you.) Nothing very interesting has been going on. The challahs I baked a couple weeks ago came out delicious and I'm definitely going to make them again in a week or so. This time, though, I'm going to make them smaller so I can have more of them. In other news, my semester is soon to be over. I have my final next Thursday and today was my last day of class. Woot! Following this, I've got a few weeks with no school so I can hopefully get some more work hours in, or at least get some other things done in the free time. Then, on January 17th, it's off to Israel for my brother's wedding (which will be in B'nai B'rak on January 25th.) I went to the dress gemach last night and found a really gorgeous purple dress that looks very nice on me. I just need to get it taken out in the shoulders so I can move my arms. I was surprised how quickly and eas...
Read more

Fudge!

Here's a little tidbit many of you may not know about me: when I was growing up, my parents gave mixed signals about kashrus. My father was pretty strict, but my mother tended to be a little lax. She would take me to non-kosher restaurants, like Hard Rock Cafe and Olive Garden, where we would both get salads. My mother would insist the croutons, eggs, tuna and parmesean cheese were okay. In addition to this, my mother used to buy Fudgery fudge. She had once looked at the bag of fudge mix that they use and had determined that it contained nothing inherently non-kosher. (I suppose that means it contained no lard or gelatin). Well, as a kid, I loved that fudge. In fact, it downright broke my heart when I realized it wasn't technically kosher. Ever since then, I've basically never had fudge again. All that is getting ready to change. I finally worked up the courage to consider, maybe, possibly, at some point in the future, making homemade fudge. It doesn't sound...
Read more