Maudy's Cooking Journal!

Having leftover pumpkin from making pumpkin cheesecake, I made this yummy bread to match colors outside my window.

Pumpkin Bread
Source: From Amish and Mennonite Kitchen
Ingredients:
1 1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup oil
2 eggs
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp cinnamon
3/4 tsp salt
1 cup mashed pumpkin
1/3 cup water
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup raisins

Mix eggs and sugar until pale, add oil, water, and pumpkin. Fold dry ingredients and raisins. Pour batter into a greased loaf pan. Bake at 350 F for an hour or until a toothpick inserted into center of loaf comes out clean.

Getting a head of cabbage from CSA, hubby asked me to make coleslaw. I was reluctant to make it because it is a side dish, meaning that I still had to make other things beside that. When I asked him what we would eat it with, excitedly he said, "KFC!"


I've been living in the U.S. for more than seven years, but I never made coleslaw—an American traditional side dish—on my own. As a starting point, I searched for the recipe in my More-with-Less cookbook. That book was a gift from my friend Ruthie for our wedding, which turns out to be very useful. Whenever I need a recipe of American traditional food, or food that uses the most basic ingredients, that's the book.

Hubby and I thought the coleslaw was great. We wanted to make more, so we were a bit disappointed when there was no cabbage in our last week's CSA box.

Deluxe Coleslaw
Source: More-with-Less Cookbook

Shred (I used a food processor):
1 medium head cabbage
In a large bowl, toss gently:
Shredded cabbage
1 green pepper, thinly sliced
2/3 cup diced celery
2/3 cup finely shredded carrots
1/2 cup sliced radishes
2 Tbs minced onion
Combine for dressing:
1 cup mayonnaise

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Blech: sheet. Kuchen: cake. So a Blechkuchen is a German cake that is baked in a large baking sheet then cut into rectangular shapes.


I came across this recipe when I flipped through a Mennonite cookbook, More-with-Less. I was looking for a new recipe for our weekly cake/bread supply and interested in the unfamiliar title of the recipe. Searching on the internet, I found that the first page was dominated by foreign language, German. Aha! I guessed it right.

A day before, we bought some Red Delicious apples from Market Square Farmers' Market. The apples didn't look so appealing, so we were not sure if we wanted them. But the lady cut one for us to try, and maaann...it was delicious! She pointed to another basket of apples and told us that those were less sweet and the ones next to it were sour. We got combination of those three different sweetnesses and filled hubby's backpack with them.

Raised Coffee Cake (Blechkuchen)
Adapted from: More-with-Less

Ingredients:
2 pkg. dry yeast
1 c. warm water
3 cup warm milk
1 1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup sugar
4 tsp salt
1 egg
6 cup flour1 c. raisins combined with 3/4 c. flour

Dissolve yeast in warm water. Combine all of the ingredients except the raisins until dough is smooth and satiny. Stir in raisins, and fold the dough gently.
Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled.

2-3 red apples, thinly sliced

With back of spoon spread the dough thinly onto 2 greased 10x15" cookie sheets. Arrange the apple slices on top of the dough.
Bake 20 minutes at 375º. Cut to rectangular shapes.

This is actually a French bread recipe, but great for a bread bowl also. French bread has strong texture and crispy crust, which are great to hold thick soups or creamy dips. Just like other French bread, this bread also goes stale in under 24 hour. Since making it is very easy, bake it right before you need it.

Easy French Bread Bowl
Adapted from: More-with-Less Mennonite Cookbook

Ingredients:
1 pkg dry yeast
1/4 cup warm water
1 Tbs sugar
2 Tbs olive oil
1 tsp salt
1 cup water
1.5 cup whole wheat flour
2.5 cup all-purpose flour

Dissolve dry yeast in warm water and let sit for 10 minutes.
Combine all of the ingredient in a mixing bowl and mix well until smooth and elastic.
Let rise until doubled.
Punch down and divide the dough to four. On a floured surface, shape each portion to a ball. Place the dough on a greased baking pan.
Let rise until double.
Brush each dough with white egg mixture.
Bake at 400'F for 15 minutes.

Hubby and I like to have oatmeal for breakfast during cold season. I like to mix it with chocolate soy milk -thing that is too weird for hubby- then warm it for a minute in the microwave. I don't like regular milk. If it is dairy milk, I will mix it with instant coffee or chocolate milk. That's why we always have white and chocolate milk for hubby and I. Since unsweetened chocolate milk is still non-existence, we also have two different kind of oatmeal (for cold months) and cereal (for hot months). I pick the unsweetened one for the grain since my milk is sweet, and vice versa for hubby.

I usually buy a bulk size of Quaker oat. So sometimes I still have some leftover oatmeal because the weather is getting warmer and I change to have cereal and cold milk for breakfast. There was still some oatmeal left when I bought the new one for my mom. My mom has oatmeal for breakfast, so I thought the leftover from winter wouldn't be enough for her. So, we have about half-small-cylinder of leftover oatmeal. So, bear with me if my next recipes call for quick oats.

Oatmeal Bread
From Amish and Mennonite Kitchen cookbook

Ingredients:
7 gr yeast
1/4 cup lukewarm water
1/2 cup quick oats
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp sugar
2 Tbs butter
1 cup boiling water
2-3 cup all purpose flour

Dissolve yeast in lukewarm water
Combine oats, whole wheat flour, sugar, butter and boiling water in a mixing bowl.
After the mixture is lukewarm, stir in the yeast mixture and the all purpose flour. Mix until well blended. After mixing the dough with machine, I like to knead the dough on my kitchen counter for about five minutes.
Place the dough back to the mixing bowl. Cover with damped towel. Let rise until double.
Punch down, shape into a loaf and place it in a greased loaf pan. Let rise again.
Bake at 350F for 30 minutes.

Hubby loves the bread. He called me after work yesterday, telling me that he would go home late. He attended an orientation for music teaching that started at 6 and ended at 8 pm. I asked him if he would get dinner, because it passed his dinner time. He said, "no, I am still too full. I couldn't stop eating your bread. It is so good"

One fine evening after went to a concert at downtown, hubby and I strolled around the Market Square. It was almost 11 o'clock, we'd had dinner at home before the concert so we weren't hungry. Approaching a local diner, hubby told me that that place had a great cobbler. So we went there, ordered two cobblers. I was satisfied with the cobbler. It was a tiny bowl of warm berry-and-peach cobbler covered with a cute star-shaped crust topped with a tiny scoop of vanilla ice cream. The best cobbler I've had so far. Then came the bill. *gulp! I didn't think it tasted good after seeing the price. Since then hubby and I often refer to that moment and laugh.

When my parents and sister visited us, we went to a strawberry farm. They were so excited to see the farm, because the one they visited in our country was much smaller. A minute after distributing buckets for them, I saw mom was busy picking strawberries, sister was busy eating those luscious fruits ignoring dad's reminder that those were unwashed, dad was busy recording and taking picture for my other sister back home, while hubby was reading in the car as usual. We brought those three buckets of strawberries home. I knew we couldn't finish those since our schedule was full during their visit. We shared some portions to our friends, ate some, then froze the rest.

Today, I found a fruit cobbler recipe from a new cookbook my friend gave me as a graduation gift. I was happy to finally use those frozen strawberry I'd been keeping for three months. This was my first cobbler that is still far from perfection. The stars I made to imitate ones we had on the pricey cobbler didn't work. The dough was too stretchy. The filling was too runny and when it was being baked, it oozed from the pan to the bottom of the oven. It also had no vanilla ice cream. Nonetheless, we had no less enjoyment that what we had at that local diner

One Saturday morning, my friend Thea called me and told me that she left a gift on her front porch. She opens her driveway for CSA vegetable pick-up every Saturday morning. So, hubby get the gift when he picked up the veggies. Got home, I opened a bag of gifts and a beautiful card filled with a lot of red heart shapes. At first, I didn't understand why she gave me those gifts. What a surprise! It was for my anniversary, and I didn't remember. My parents and sister had just visited us for two weeks, and a day before (Friday), we just got back from taking them to Atlanta airport. We had such a busy and wonderful moments, made me "ignore" our 6th anniversary.

Among the gifts, there is a jar of strawberry jam. The jam had been in our refrigerator for almost a month when hubby suddenly was eager to open it because I just took out a bread from the oven. It was almost 11 o'clock, but he persistently wanted to have bread and jam. I tried the jam (and bread), and goodness gracious! It was so good! The texture was great, because she let big pulps, just as we like it. The sweet and sourness was balance, unlike store-brought jams that are sugar overloaded. The Mennonite bread I baked was also good. It was one of my lucky days in baking that's hard to repeat. In consequence, the jam was down to a third from the bottom just a day after we opened it.

...and this is soup for the bread. Super easy hearty soup that can be eaten for several days Good for anytime, but best for winter.

Minestrone Soup
From More-with-Less
Ingredients:
8 0z. pinto/kidney bean
Soak bean overnight, Cover and cook for 1 1/2 hour. Reserve the liquid.

1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
10 cup liquid (reserved bean liquid plus chicken broth)
4 carrot, cubed
2 stalks celery, chopped
2 tomatoes, peeled and chopped (I used 1 can tomato puree)
1 cup frozen corn
1 cup frozen sweet peas
2 zucchini, thinly sliced
1/4 cabbage, thinly shredded
1/2 cup carrot greens, chopped well
1/2 cup elbow macaroni
Salt
Pepper

In a large pan, sautee onion and garlic until soft, add carrot, celery, corn, tomatoes, sweet peas, salt, and pepper. Cover, bring to a boil, reduce heat, simmer for 1 hour. Add cabbage, zucchini, carrot greens, and macaroni. Simmer for another 15 minutes. Serve hot.

As part of our CSA vegetable, we were given choice of herbs and we needed to pick one. The choices were cilantro, parsley or dill. Since I never had nor knew dill before, I told Meg with confident that I wanted dill. I promise that I saw a lot of recipes that used dill when I looked for other recipes. But, as most you may have experienced, I couldn't find recipe that used dill when I needed it. Our dill stayed for a week in the fridge.

The Saturday after that, I was still asleep enjoying my Saturday. Hubby picked up the vegetable box by himself. Got home, hubby told me that he didn't know what to answer when Meg asked him what herb he wanted, randomly he chose DILL! Haha...I forgot to tell him that I needed cilantro. One more bunch of dill in the fridge.

Yesterday after gotten another veggie box, I felt that I needed to use that dill, so I searched recipe from Mennonite Cookbook my friend Ruth gave me on our wedding day. I found a recipe that looked easy, dill bread. It asked for dill seed, but I was sure no one complained if I put fresh dill instead

Dill Bread
From More-with-Less
Ingredients:
1 pack yeast
1/4 cup warm water
1 cup low fat cottage cheese
2 Tbs chopped dill
1/4 tsp baking soda
2 tsp salt
1 egg
1 Tbs olive oil
1/2 Tbs minced onion
2 Tbs sugar
2 1/4 - 2 1/2 flour

Dissolve yeast in warm water. In a separate mixing bowl, combine the rest of ingredients except flour.
Add flour, stir well to combine. Let rise until double in size. Punch down, put in well-greased pan. Let rise again aout 45 minutes. Bake at 350'F about 30 minutes. Brush with melted margarine.

Hubby & I almost always have breakfast together in the morning. Together means having it at the same time. We sit side by side in front of our own monitors in our den, but each doing our own stuffs. This habit is inevitable on weekdays, since we have to "prepare" our day using computer. We are always frantic in the morning in school time. However, this habit gets carried unintentionally on Saturday also. We'll get up at different time, take shower then quickly pour milk over a bowl of cereal, sit in front of computer then he starts cleaning the house while I am having family time, chatting with my family. Not fair? That's the only overlap time my family & I have. That's such a precious time to be able to talk & see their face. My nieces are cute. Anyway. Oh how I love advance technology

This Saturday, all of my family went out of town for my cousin's wedding for the whole weekend, meaning I couldn't chat with them. I planned a pancake breakfast date with hubby. I wrote an invitation on the back of a theater-play ticket (hey, reusing is good for environment). The invitation said that he was cordially invited to a pancake breakfast party at 10.00a.m at Maudy's Diner; and if he brought the invitation, he'd get free flow strawberry. He was excited to get invitation from his silly wife.

We did our Saturday routine, which is picked up vegetables and got stuffs from the co-op then we went home directly. It was pass 10 a.m. So I told my guess that the party would be about 30 minutes late. He was totally fine with it, meant that he could listen to Cartalk! That's on his Saturday schedule. About 2/3 of the whole batter was done, then my in laws called. I forgot that it is in-law's time. We had a long talking. I am so blessed to have such great in-laws. I enjoy talking with them.

It passed 11a.m when I went back to finish frying the pancake. The pan that had heat spread evenly and perfect for frying pancake then needed to be heated again. All pan fried food is tricky, before the heat gets spread evenly, it is hard to get the right result. My first ones is always black burnt, then it will get perfect when the batter is almost gone. My guess complained that he was super hungry. It was 12.00 when we had our breakfast party.

Classic Pancake
Recipe from Mennonite cookbook, More-with-Less.
Ingredients for pancake mix:
2 cup all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
3 Tbs baking powder
3 Tbs sugar
1 tsp salt
2/3 cup powdered milk (I use skim buttermilk)
Mix all the ingredients then store in airtight container.

To use:
1 egg
1 cup water or milk
2 Tbs oil
1 1/2 cup pancake mix

Mix all ingredients using whisker. Fry on hot lightly greased pan/griddle.


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