Saturday, September 18, 2010

Maple Oatmeal Bread and Quinoa Bread

This time around for our HBn5 assignment we made maple oatmeal bread, and quinoa bread.


I was looking forward to both, maple and oats.. yum, and I loves me some quinoa.

The maple oatmeal dough smelled really good while I was mixing it up. Maple syrup and cinnamon….duh! I found that it didn’t rise as quickly or as high as some other breads that we’ve done. When I took it out of the fridge and shaped it, it took longer to rise. It smelled wonderful while baking and I could hardly wait to dig in. The loaf came out nice I thought, but I didn’t feel that it had the taste I was expecting. While I am writing this, I am munching on some made into toast and schmeared with butter. Not bad, still not my favorite.

The quinoa bread is one of my favorites so far. I like quinoa, and so does MJOL, if I don’t tell him that’s what he is eating! This dough rose very well, before I put it in the fridge and after I shaped it. It had a nice crust and crumb and I liked the crunch of the quinoa. We had it last night with whole wheat rotini, and sauce made with roasted tomatoes from the garden.

Check out what the other bakers did over at Michelle’s Big Black Dogs.



Until our next baking adventure.

Saturday, September 11, 2010

Algerian Flatbread

For this HBn5 assignment I chose to do a loaf of WW bread, which was gone before I could get a picture, and the Msemmen. The spices smelled so good when I was mixing them up. My thought was that 3 tablespoons of olive oil was too much. When I rolled up the dough a lot of the spice mixture leak out; it was so runny. I was afraid that I had lost all of the flavor, but I was wrong. Great tasting bread with a kick from the cayenne that grew in the back of the mouth. MJOL liked it but did think it was a little too spicy.





Check out what the other bakers did over at Michelle’s Big Black Dogs.

I had an influx of tomatoes the last couple of weeks and have been scrambling to find things to do with them. I made and canned some salsa. I made and froze some stewed tomatoes and then I thought hmmm.. I think I'll try roasting. I cored, quartered and seeded them, added some olive oil, balsamic, and garlic. I roasted them at 275 for about 2 1/2 hours. The house smelled so heavenly I could barely stand it, and the product....like sweet candy jewels. I froze them for use in those cold dreary winter months when tomatoes would taste so good.



Until our next baking adventure.