Pa's Pepper Cheddar Cheese Bread

I love handwritten recipes ... this one is by my Daddy's hand.

He was actually a pretty decent cook although I don't remember him in the kitchen very much until he was on his own.  There would occasionally be a potluck lunch or snack day at his work and he would bring home a recipe for something he had sampled that day.  He would get the ingredients together and give it a try.  He made the first sausage balls and the first almond bark candy in our house and continued to make both every Christmas season as long as he could.  After Mother died, every other week or so he would cook and invite us over for a big lunch. 

His recipe for Pepper Cheddar Cheese Bread became one of my favorites.

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoons black pepper (I think Daddy may have increased this some)

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup sour cream

2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese

1/2 cup melted butter

2 eggs (would probably mix better if beaten first, but then it wouldn't make such a cute face)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Whisk together all dry ingredients in a large bowl.  Stir in remaining ingredients until well blended and begins to form a ball.  Press dough into a greased and floured 9- x 5-inch loaf pan.  Bake for 35 minutes.  Let cool in pan a few minutes; remove and let cool completely or serve warm if you prefer.     

This makes such a pretty loaf of bread and slices like a dream.  It's also delicious with the Turnip Green Stew.

A whole lot of chopping going on

but only because I took the longer way around to get to the finished product.  This recipe for Turnip Green Stew (adapted a bit from Southern Living) calls for the frozen mix of diced onions, celery, red and green peppers but I had a crisper full of all of the above that were crying to be used. 

Plus, I added in some diced orange bell pepper ... I like a splash of orange every now and then (Go Vols!)  

This recipe for Turnip Green Stew is a quick, one-dish meal in a bowl ... delicious and comforting!

Turnip Green Stew

2 cups chopped cooked ham

1 tablespoon olive oil

3 cups low sodium chicken broth
2 (16 ounce) packages frozen chopped turnip greens
2 (15.5 ounce) cans cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
4 cups (1 cup each) of diced onion, celery, red and green peppers
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon seasoned pepper

Saute chopped ham in olive oil in a Dutch oven over medium-high heat about 5 minutes until lightly browned.  Add diced onions, celery and peppers and cook a few minutes more until almost tender.  Add broth and remaining ingredients and bring to a boil.

Reduce heat to low.  Cover and simmer, stirring occasionally, for about 35-40 minutes. 

And yes, it makes a pot full.

 

Linked to Weekend Potluck!!

More Juicing and Zesting

While I'm in a lemon frame of mind I chose a Lemon Lime Cake from an old Cooking Light magazine.  This cake hits the favorite list!  It is delicious and although "lightened" I couldn't tell any difference taste-wise from a cake with un-light ingredients ... although I think you could use the regular version of the lighter ingredients if you wanted.  It's also nice that once you get the lemons and limes juiced and zested, the rest goes together fairly quickly.

So, now there's a good quantity of bald citrus objects rolling around in the refrigerator.

For the Cake:

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup egg substitute
1 tablespoon grated lemon rind

1 tablespoon grated lime rind

1 tablespoon fresh lime juice

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/3 cups low-fat buttermilk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Spray two 9-inch round cake pans with cooking spray; line bottoms with wax or parchment paper.  Coat paper with cooking spray.

Place sugar and butter in large bowl and beat at medium speed until light and fluffy (about 5 minutes).  Add egg substitute, lime and lemon zest, and lime juice; beat well.  In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.  Add to butter mixture alternately with buttermilk, beginning and ending with flour mixture.  Spoon batter into prepared pans, tapping on countertop to remove air bubbles.  Bake 30-35 minutes until centers test done.  Cool in pans for 10 minutes on a wire rack.  Remove from pans, peel off wax paper, and cool completely on rack.    

It's cooling.

For the Icing:

1 1/2 teaspoons grated lemon rind

1 1/2 teaspoons grated lime rind

1 1/2 teaspoons fresh lime juice

12 ounces 1/3-less fat cream cheese, softened

3 3/4 cups powdered sugar, sifted

Place lemon and lime zest, lime juice and cream cheese in a medium bowl and beat at medium speed until well blended.  Reduce speed to low; gradually add powdered sugar and beat until blended.  Cover and chill for 30 minutes.

Place one layer on cake plate and cover with icing.

Top with second layer.



Cover cake with a thin layer of icing to crumb coat. 

Chill in refrigerator for a few minutes.



Spread remaining icing over top and sides of cake.



Frosting is complete.  Chill one hour before serving.

Cover loosely and store in refrigerator.

A little bit of frosting left over ... just enough for a midnight snack attack!

Funny how that worked out ...

Glazed Lemon Bread

I DO NOT LIKE COLD WEATHER.

But here we are, mid-November, marching fast and furiously toward the depths of winter.  The crisp scent of lemon however, reminds me of warmer days, so when I came across this clipping for a glazed lemon bread I couldn't resist.  Plus, once the oven heats I can open the door and stand next to it and stay toasty warm while all the measuring and mixing takes place.  The downside?  This bread is a fairly quick fix and I had to close the oven door way too soon.

Glazed Lemon Bread

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 cup granulated sugar

2 large eggs

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup milk

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

2 tablespoons lemon zest, divided

1 cup powdered sugar

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1 tablespoon sparkling sugar

Beat softened butter at medium speed until creamy.  Gradually add 1 cup sugar and continue beating until light and fluffy.  Add eggs, one at a time, mixing after each until blended.

Stir together flour, baking powder, and salt; add to butter mixture alternately with milk, beginning and ending with flour mixture.  Add vanilla.  Stir in one tablespoon of lemon zest.  Spoon batter into a greased and floured 8- x 4-inch loaf pan.

Bake at 350 degrees for one hour or until center tests done.  Let bread cool in the pan for 10 minutes.  Remove from pan and let cool completely on a wire rack.

Stir together powdered sugar and lemon juice and spoon evenly over top of bread, letting the excess drip off the sides.  Mix remaining one tablespoon of lemon zest with sparkling sugar.  Sprinkle over glaze to garnish.

Cheesy Puffs (pate a choux)

The corner of this clipping is marked "Family Circle 12/11/84".  Goodness, a mere child and I was already clipping recipes!  Well, maybe not quite a child.  Actually, not quite a teenager even.  Ahem ... but enough of that.

This is a quick little ditty of a recipe and another one of those one pot deals.  Although they're quite tasty as they are I think a bit of bacon and chopped green onions or maybe diced jalapenos would be a nice addition.

The recipe indicates a yield of 8 dozen.  Perhaps in 1984 we ate more petitely, but by scooping out the paste in what I would describe as a heaping teaspoonful yielded me only 4 dozen puffs.

1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup butter
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 cup sifted all-purpose flour

4 eggs

1 cup shredded cheese (I used a colby-jack blend)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Line 2 large cookie sheets with parchment paper.

 

Combine milk, water, butter, salt, pepper and nutmeg in a large saucepan.  Bring to a full rolling boil.  Add flour all at once and stir vigorously with a wooden spoon until mixture forms a thick, smooth ball that leaves the side of the pan.  Remove from heat.  Stir in eggs one at a time, blending well after each until paste is shiny and smooth.  Add cheese and stir until melted.

Drop paste by heaping teaspoonfuls onto prepared sheets spacing about 1 inch apart.

Bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes.  Reduce heat to 350 degrees and bake 10-15 minutes more until golden and puffy.  Turn off oven. 

 

Prick each puff with a fork and return to warm oven to rest for 5 minutes.

These can be made ahead and refrigerated in a tightly sealed container then reheat later in a 350 degree oven for 5 minutes or until heated through.

I still think one would be hard pressed to get 8 dozen puffs out of this.



Give us this day our daily

While the sourdough was rising, I decided to try a Rustic Bread from a recent issue of Southern Lady.  This one turned out to be an all afternoon affair, definitely a weekend only venture for me.  It has three stages of rising and resting but the result is a nice, crusty loaf, tender on the inside, and would be a great accompaniment to the pot of soup my husband Chris made earlier in the day - that is, if it lasts until soup time tomorrow night.  I halved the recipe due to running low on my supply of bread flour but it still made a nice size loaf.



Mixed and resting



1 3/4 cup bread flour

1/8 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast

1 1/8 teaspoons kosher salt

2/3 cup cold water

Stir flour, cheese, yeast and salt together in mixer bowl.  Add cold water and mix about 2 minutes on low speed with a dough hook until dough begins to form a ball.  You may need to add extra water to get a good mix - I added about another tablespoon.  Let dough rest for 5 minutes.  Beat an additional one minute.  Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and let rest for 2 minutes.  Knead until smooth.



After the second rising



Place dough in a bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let rise to 1 1/2 times its original size.  If in a warm place, this will take about one hour.  Turn out on a lightly floured surface and knead for 90 seconds.  Return to bowl to rise another hour, then knead another 90 seconds.

Flour a baking sheet.  Shape dough into a loaf and place on sheet to rise another hour or until doubled in bulk.

Put a baking stone in a 500 degree oven to preheat.  Sprinkle stone with cornmeal.  Turn dough carefully onto hot stone and bake 10-12 minutes until golden brown.  Reduce temperature to 425 degrees and bake another 10 minutes.  Cool on wire rack. 



The result was a cute little loaf of bread that somehow developed a cowlick during the last rise.  I didn't use the cornmeal but it baked fine without it, although my baking stone may never be the same after sweltering at 500 degrees.



And while the bread was cooling my two guys were standing behind me with a bread knife and the butter tub waiting for a sample.  I don't think it's going to make it to soup time.

Variation on a Sourdough

It is football season.  At my house that means marching band season.  And that means every weekend is booked with games and marching band competitions through the end of October or perhaps even longer if the football team makes the playoffs.

The result?  There is very little baking going on around here unless it's something tried and true.  Since the sourdough starter is still alive and well (due, of course, to my tender care and regular feedings) I've tried some variations instead of the usual white or wheat bread.

This one is a whole wheat cinnamon raisin bread.  After you've let the dough rise, punched it down and divided into thirds, knead each piece several times on a floured surface then roll out into a rectangular shape.  The dough is very elastic and can be tricky to roll out but you'll eventually get there.

Generously sprinkle dough with ground cinnamon, white sugar or golden brown sugar, raisins or chopped pecans, or all of the above, whatever your heart desires.  Start at one shorter end and roll up.  Tuck in the ends and place into your greased loaf pan seam side down to rise for 6-8 hours.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

No need to wait for it to cool.  I recommend slicing and consuming while it's still warm, it's the only way.

It doesn't get much easier than this ...

or more delicious, for that matter.  My Mother's Egg Custard Pie from her favorites book is also one of my favorites and it's been years and years since I've made this recipe.  A few simple ingredients, one bowl, one whisk, a pie plate and you're all set.

Egg Custard Pie 

3 eggs, well beaten

3 tablespoons flour
3 tablespoons butter, melted
1 cup sugar
1 can (12 ounces) evaporated milk
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla flavoring

Whisk together all ingredients in the order listed.  Pour into a greased and floured glass pie plate.  No crust is needed because it makes its own crust as it bakes.  

Bake at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes.

The pie will be rather poufy when you first take it from the oven but will settle quickly.  Once cool, it slices easily.  Almost too easy according to my sister ... seems that whenever she made this pie every time she walked by she would slice off a sliver, then another sliver, then another.  So, maybe instead of a pie it could be considered a finger food.

Incredibly simple, incredibly good and apparently will disappear incredibly fast!  See?  It's already started ...

The only thing left to do with these fellas

is to make banana bread.  After searching a while for a good recipe, I decided the best place to look would be in one of the many church cookbooks in my cabinet.  And wouldn't you know it, the one I settled on was in a cookbook from my own church.  The back is missing, the spiral binding is split and broken, and like many other church-sponsored cookbooks contains offerings from some of the best cooks ever.
This recipe was submitted by a dear friend who also happens to have been my junior high school home economics teacher many ... well, a few years ago.  Although I'm not a big fan of bananas, I do love banana bread and was pretty sure this would be a good one.  I was not disappointed.

Banana Nut Bread

1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened

1 cup sugar

2 eggs, beaten well

2 cups all purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

pinch of salt

3 ripe bananas, mashed

1 cup chopped pecans

Cream butter and sugar on medium speed until fluffy; add eggs.  Sift flour, baking soda and salt together then gradually add to butter mixture.  Mix in mashed bananas until well blended.  Stir in pecans.  Spread batter into a greased and floured 9 x 5-inch loaf pan.  Bake at 325 degrees for 50 minutes.  Let cool in pan for about 5 minutes.  Loosen sides and turn out onto wire rack to finish cooling.

Thank you "Annie Ruth"  for a really quick, moist, delicious banana bread!

Fruit of the Season

You go to the grocery or the corner produce stand these days and there are peaches, peaches, peaches.  For that reason, this Peach Tea recipe seemed to jump to the top of the stack.  It takes some planning ahead as the tea blend needs to chill awhile before adding the remaining ingredients but the result is a quite refreshing drink for these dog days of summer.  This is a slight variation of a fairly recent Southern Living recipe.  First make a simple syrup ...

2 cups sugar
1 cup water

Combine in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil over medium-high heat.  Boil for about 4 minutes, stirring occasionally, until sugar is dissolved and liquid is clear.  Cool to room temperature, which takes about 30 minutes.

Peach Tea
Makes - 1 gallon (plus about 3 glasses full)

3 family-size tea bags

33 ounces peach nectar

12 ounce can frozen lemonade concentrate, thawed

1/2 cup simple sugar syrup

1 liter club soda, chilled

1 liter gingerale, chilled

Bring 4 cups of water to a boil in a medium saucepan, add tea bags and boil for one minute.  Remove from heat, cover and steep for 10 minutes.  Discard tea bags and pour into a one gallon container.  Add peach nectar, lemonade and sugar syrup.  Refrigerate for 8-24 hours.  Combine tea mixture with chilled club soda and gingerale just before serving.  Garnish with fresh peach slices.

I found this concoction to be more than one gallon and so used a second pitcher, pouring back and forth, to thoroughly blend.  In order to store in the one gallon pitcher however, someone had to volunteer to drink the extra three glasses.

I know, it's a tough job.

Dark Chocolate Orange Flop

Actually, it's called Dark Chocolate Orange Cake but since this recipe didn't quite work as planned I'm calling it a Flop!  This is a flourless cake with the classic combination of dark chocolate and orange and of course, I'm partial toward any dessert with chocolate especially of the dark variety.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Coat an 8-inch springform pan with cooking spray and line with a circle of wax paper or parchment paper.  Wrap outside of pan in aluminum foil.

3/4 cup powdered sugar

3 large eggs

2 tablespoons cornstarch

3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa

2 tablespoons fresh orange juice

1 tablespoon orange liqueur

1 tablespoon hot water

dash salt

2 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped

Place sugar and eggs in mixing bowl; mix at high speed for 7 minutes.  Combine cornstarch and cocoa in small bowl, set aside.  Place juice, liqueur, water, salt and chocolate in small glass bowl; microwave on high for one minute or until almost melted, stopping to stir at 20-second intervals.  Whisk in cornstarch and cocoa mixture.  Gently stir in 1/4 of egg mixture into chocolate, then fold chocolate mix into remainder of egg mixture. 

Pour batter into prepared pan and place in a larger baking dish; add about 1-inch hot water in the larger pan.  Bake for 20 minutes or until top is set.  Cool on wire rack for 5 minutes, loosen cake from sides of pan with knife.  Cool to room temperature then chill 4 hours or overnight before serving.

Ok ... after baking for almost an hour, I still had a very soft, gooey cake batter that was no where near the cake stage.  No amount of cooling or chiling was going to make it set up, so as the saying goes, "When life gives you lemons make lemonade."  Not to be outdone ... when life gives you a Dark Chocolate Orange Flop, spoon it up and make an ice cream sundae ... Yum!

 

Strawberry Rhubarb Tart with Brown Butter Streusel

Rhubarb ... that's not a fruit you normally pluck out of the produce bin, take home and eat.  In fact I remember eating rhubarb only once before, years ago, thanks to a friend delivering a rhubarb cobbler sort of dish to our house, after which Mother and Daddy embarked on a considerable amount of coaxing and bribery before I gave it a try.  And I loved it!  For some reason though, I never tried it again until now.

This clipping appears to be from an issue of Bon Appetit and actually labels it a Rhubarb Tart.  Since I didn't have enough rhubarb for 5 cups I finished it off with strawberries and changed the name to Strawberry Rhubarb Tart.

Streusel -

9 tablespoons unsalted butter

3/4 cup sliced almonds

3/4 cup (packed) light brown sugar

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

3/4 cup all purpose flour

Cook butter in large skillet over medium heat until golden, stirring frequently, about 5 minutes.  Remove from heat.  Mix in almonds, brown sugar and cinnamon.  Stir in flour until moist clumps form.  Cool completely.

Filling -

5 cups 1/2-inch thick slices of rhubarb

(or in my case 5 cups of sliced rhubarb and strawberries)

1 1/4 cups sugar

1/2 all purpose flour

1 teaspoon grated lemon zest

Toss all ingredients in bowl to blend.  Let stand about 15 minutes until filling is moist through, stirring occasionally.

Crust -

Unroll and place purchased pie crust into a 9-inch tart pan, trim to fit.  Pierce bottom with fork.  Bake at 375 degrees for 20 minutes until golden brown.

Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees.  Spoon fruit filling into warm crust and top with crumbled streusel.  Bake for 1 hour until filling is bubbly and streusel is crisp and brown.  Cool on wire rack 30 minutes then serve warm.