Tammy's Recipes

Steph asks:

I was making bagels today, and I can never get them to come out just right. I read up on dough conditioners, and added an egg (no access to lecithin powder in my area). So far so good, but I was wondering why you guys opt to use the powder rather than just add an egg?

Also, can you give any tips for forming the bagels? Mine come out a little....lumpy and oddly shaped. Tasty, but not pretty. I'd love any suggestions!

Granulated lecithin vs. adding eggs:

Breads made with eggs tend to get dry more quickly. (Challah has lots of eggs and tastes delicious when fresh but is notoriously dry the next day, making it a great candidate for Challah French toast!) The granulated lecithin seems to do best for providing a uniform texture and softness. (Also, see Joshua's article about natural dough conditioners -- maybe a sprinkle of ginger, a pinch of citric acid/ascorbic acid, or some additional gluten would help!)

Lumpy-shaped bagels:

The two ways I have formed bagels have been to either roll a "log" and connect the ends, or form a ball and poke a hole in the middle and stretch it out. The ball/hole method is my favorite, since it seems easier and quicker. My bagels look lumpy after they're boiled, but as they rise more and then during baking -- they rise even more -- they even out.

In my experience, when I've had bread that stayed "lumpy" rather than smooth, it could be due to not having enough flour in the dough (too wet/sticky) or not having the gluten developed properly (either not enough gluten in the dough, or not enough kneading time). What kind of flour do you use?

To participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays: Post a kitchen tip in your blog, with a link to this post. Then come here and add your name, tip subject, and URL to this post! Links must be family friendly, as always. If you don't have a blog but would still like to share a tip, just leave a comment here with your tip! Everyone's ideas are appreciated. :) Note: Please link to your individual post, not your blog's main/front page! Ask me if you have questions; links that don't go to an individual post will be deleted. Please, no giveaways since they "expire" and this is for timeless kitchen secrets! ;) Thanks for participating! :)

Why do so many apartments include carpeted dining areas?! Personally I think carpet + kids eating = disaster! I'm already not a big fan of carpet at all (hello, germs and allergies!) but under the kitchen table? With children eating??!

Our new place, like all the others we looked at, has carpet in the dining area. Yehoshua (4) is a neat and careful eater, so we've allowed him to eat at the kitchen table. Eliyahu (2) is a little messier and so we moved him back into the high chair and set it in the kitchen (which, thankfully, has linoleum!).

But, Ruth is ready for the high chair now. I'm tired of eating one-handed; after all, she's almost 1! And what about when we have families over who have small children?

We're planning to get this child-size picnic table and set it up in the kitchen. From the measurements, it looks like that would take up most of the kitchen floorspace, so it would be something we got out for each meal, and put away (or took into the living room?) afterward. It would seat several children, though, and I wouldn't have to worry every time Yehoshua had a glass of milk, or a bowl of soup. I also liked the idea of a picnic table since it could be used outside in the distant future when we someday have a small yard. :) (We had a borrowed one in Ohio in our yard.)

Other ideas were to get a large piece of plastic and put it under the kitchen table, but we haven't come across any very affordable large pieces of plastic yet.

Surely some of you are also in the situation of children + carpeted dining room. What's your solution? I'd love to hear!! :)

Lunch yesterday included grilled salmon burgers, Italian Pasta Salad, cooked peas and applesauce. Joshua grilled the burgers for us -- they were a frozen kind and very delicious! (Yes, I like Costco and no, I didn't pay $15 like the website says. :))

Later in the evening, we got 3-4 inches of snow. Even I'll admit that cold pasta salad isn't very appetizing in a chilly house with snow falling outside... :)

I hope we get to see the sun today. Seattle gets (on average) less rainfall each year than Ohio, but the number of overcast, damp days -- particularly in the Winter -- is significantly more.

Perfect weather for drinking tea, actually. And this Sweet Coconut Thai Chai tea from Celestial Seasonings is a new favorite! I don't usually add sweetener to my tea, but a spoonful of xylitol and a dash of milk make this chai super yummy. Back in October, Kroger had Celestial Seasonings tea for $1 a box -- a really great price which allowed me to restock some of our favorites and get a few new ones to try. :)

Ruth has the right idea...

I love baking; to me, the word baking brings to mind loaves of fresh homemade bread, bubbly casseroles, or steaming hot muffins. So delicious and so comforting!

So instead of a kitchen tip today, I'm going to point you toward a website and blog: King Arthur Flour.

For starters, they have a great recipe section. But I'll admit that what really drew me in was their blog! The folks in their test kitchen have a sweet, homey, and often-hilarious blog. Ignore that weird-looking marshmallow post at the top right now -- check out their Top Ten Test Kitchen Disasters to Avoid, their granola bars (I've got to try those!), the whole grain pancakes that look oh-so-yummy, and yes, they have lots of posts about bread making!

Okay, okay, enough links. Time for all of your wonderful tips!

To participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays: Post a kitchen tip in your blog, with a link to this post. Then come here and add your name, tip subject, and URL to this post! Links must be family friendly, as always. If you don't have a blog but would still like to share a tip, just leave a comment here with your tip! Everyone's ideas are appreciated. :) Note: Please link to your individual post, not your blog's main/front page! Ask me if you have questions; links that don't go to an individual post will be deleted. Please, no giveaways since they "expire" and this is for timeless kitchen secrets! ;) Thanks for participating! :)

Joshua offered to try making some bread. I was happy to be relieved of the experimentation process! "At least when his bread falls in the oven I won't be the one who's disappointed." Ha!

I was sure his efforts were doomed when he said he was going to use our regular bread recipe -- the one I'd made twice since our move and had absolute failures both times!

However, Joshua decided to use half unbleached white flour and half whole wheat flour in the recipe. He also upped the oven temperature from 350 to 375. (Still don't have a thermometer -- due to ice and snow we've only driven the car once in the past 11 days -- and that was to work!)

To my surprise, his bread turned out wonderful. It rose so high it hit the heating element at the top of the oven. It was soft, the texture was perfect, and it didn't fall one bit. ??!! Just like our bread is supposed to be... except for the all-purpose flour.

So, the mystery continues. If nothing else, we've reached a compromise. :)

Winners of the Skoy cloth giveaway:

Leslie (jandltomko@...)
crhickle@...
Amanda (ast@...)
Athena (aray31@...)
Lady Snow (candlebynight...)
Linda (mommy2maria@...)
chelseykarns@...
Christy G. (candbgom@...)
Gina (ginahom@...)
Cara (simplycara...)

I hope you all enjoy your sample packs! :) Please contact me with your name and address to receive your packet. I'll also email the winners.

Someone also asked how to order Skoy cloths online. If you go to their website and click "Online Shopping" it should take you to an order page.

Thanks, everyone, for your enthusiasm over the Skoy giveaway! I'm planning another review and giveaway in the next week or so, so stay tuned. :)

I baked these potatoes, tossed with seasonings (garlic salt, pepper, paprika and parsley) and topped with chunks of butter.

They looked pretty but tasted very dry. I used a glass lid on this dish while they baked. I probably baked them for too long or on too high a temperature (350*F), or maybe I should have added a little water to the bottom of the dish?

At any rate, I dipped mine in sour cream as I ate them and they were more like oven fries than the moist seasoned potato chunks I had envisioned!

What's your favorite way to prepare potatoes? I need some fresh inspiration!

I love homemade bread. As disappointed as I was over my recent bread recipe failures, I was not about to give up. I read everyone's ideas and advice and promptly started another loaf. !! :)

Angel lives not so very far from us, and her bread looks so very delicious! I tried her recipe, following it exactly except for the orange juice which I didn't have (I added a small pinch of citric acid instead).

That bread didn't fall in the oven, but it didn't really rise much either. I loved the flavor and taste (I love homemade bread!) but it tasted like, well, like how someone would probably expect homemade 100% whole wheat bread to taste.

As I was toasting the last slice, I said to Joshua, "You know, this bread isn't bad. In fact, it's really good. But it's NOT like my bread in Ohio was."

So, I kept reading and looking. I came across a blog called Cooking For Seven and was mesmerized by her photography. Oh, I really need to figure out the lighting here. I can't exactly take a plate of food to photograph out on the deck when it's raining. And I guess it rains all Spring and Fall here in Seattle, and all Winter too, except for when it's snowing. Anyway.

Cooking For Seven's whole wheat bread recipe looked really yummy, and I figured, why not? I'll be making a loaf of bread every-other-day until I get this figured out, so I might as well keep trying new recipes. :)

I followed that recipe, minus the optional ingredients, decreasing the water by a couple tablespoons and increasing the 1 tablespoon of gluten to 4 tablespoons (on the recommendation from Noah).

This is the loaf I pulled from my oven. Much more promising than any of the others. Inside, the texture was closer to what I'm looking for. I thought the bread tasted too salty though, and it was still a little dense.

I tried the recipe again today, decreasing the salt to 1 teaspoon and increasing the yeast to 2 teaspoons. I thought the resulting loaf was an improvement.

Now, I'm still trying to figure out how to get the loaf more consistent in texture/denseness from top to bottom. The top half of my slices of bread are great -- airy, light, soft. But by the bottom of the slice, it is very dense. too dense, in my opinion. And I still don't think these loaves are as high as they should be. And, there's still some sinking in the oven. (I know it didn't rise too much.)

So what would give the bread the strength to hold up a lighter texture throughout the whole loaf, even closer to the bottom? :)

What fun it must be to be a "big kid"! Ruth watched out the window as Yehoshua and Eliyahu played in the 12+ inches of snow on our deck yesterday. The snow was great entertainment for them. :)

Not that I would ever mess up bread or anything... ;) In the past 10 days or so, we've had 5 loaves of less-than-stellar homemade bread. (I was making 2-loaf batches and then realized that doing it a loaf at a time is much better for experimenting! haha)

The bread hasn't been very good for sandwiches, or even really eating slices with butter, but it's fine for French toast, buttered toast (with oatmeal for breakfast -- yum!), homemade stuffing, or homemade croutons. (By the way, the homemade stuffing mix recipe now -- finally!! -- has the instructions for making it completely into stuffing.)

Anyone have any more ideas for using up only-okay homemade bread? Garlic bread is usually very forgiving as well, but I don't really like whole wheat garlic bread... :)

To participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays: Post a kitchen tip in your blog, with a link to this post. Then come here and add your name, tip subject, and URL to this post! Links must be family friendly, as always. If you don't have a blog but would still like to share a tip, just leave a comment here with your tip! Everyone's ideas are appreciated. :) Note: Please link to your individual post, not your blog's main/front page! Ask me if you have questions; links that don't go to an individual post will be deleted. Please, no giveaways since they "expire" and this is for timeless kitchen secrets! ;) Thanks for participating! :)

I love trying new things! Variety adds flavor to life, and while I do have some favorite mainstays, I love free samples and new things. :)

A couple months ago, I was offered a free sample packet of two Skoy cloths. I jumped on the offer and am having a blast using them! :)

What is a Skoy cloth? It's a sponge-like cloth that's washable, re-usable, anti-bacterial, and biodegradable! It's soft, absorbent, and fun to use! When mine came in the mail, I was actually excited that I had a whole counter full of dishes to wash! :)

I like sponges, but I like the Skoy cloth better. It's thinner, so it's great for washing dishes and taletops. It dries fairly quickly, unlike my dishrags, and I used the first one for almost a month without laundering and it still smelled great! (I guess that's what they mean by "antibacterial"... though I had to try it to believe it!)

Here's Yehoshua using the pink one I got. That cloth lasted about a month with very heavy use -- we were in the process of moving and it got used for anything and everything those last 2 weeks. Skoy is surprisingly durable!

You can visit the Skoy cloth website to learn more.

And, the owners of Skoy have graciously offered to give away sample 2-packs to 10 of my readers! Just leave a comment here with a way for me to contact you if you're one of the winners. I'm excited that some of you will be able to try Skoy cloths for free, too! :)

The giveaway will end on Friday, December 26, at 3pm EST. I'll announce the winners here on my blog sometime Friday afternoon.

And, if you have already tried Skoy cloths in the past, I'd love to hear your opinion as well! :)

Joshua brushed several inches of snow off his Weber Q grill Saturday evening, and grilled us some yummy chicken. Are we the only crazy folks who like to grill year-round? I'm thrilled that Joshua is always willing and happy to grill food for us whenever I ask! :)

About 24 hours later, the grill was again covered in snow. A lot of snow! At least, an unusual amount of snow for here. Anyone want to make some snow ice cream with me? (I've never tried it but it sounds easy! haha)

Looking out our windows towards the hills... such a serene view, it's hard to believe that Seattle is only a few miles down the road, on the other side!

I'll be back later today with a giveaway, and tonight with a kitchen tip. I need to get some chores done while Joshua is outside playing in the snow with the boys. :)

I'm slowly getting back into all my usual baking here in our new home. After so many... changes... at first it was a big step just for me to have a menu made out and full meals made on time! But I'm feeling much more settled, and I've even been scoping out the best locations for photographing our food. ;)

This coffee cake turned out wonderfully! I had gotten some Granny Smith apples for baking, and made an easy fruit coffee cake for Joshua to take into work. I had never tried apples in that recipe before, but they were great! We made another one today and it's disappearing quickly!! :)

Despite all the snow (??!!) we've been getting, the sun did peek out today and I took the picture above. :) I am very grateful that our apartment windows face South, providing beautiful warm rays in between the rains, fog, and yes -- snow. :)

I've made my homemade bread twice now here in Washington. The first time, the loaves sunk as they baked and the texture was a little "off" and I also had to add about 1 cup of extra flour for 2 loaves.

These little things were alarming to me, since I was following my recipe exactly as I always did, and I had been making bread often enough (1-3 times a week) that I had it figured out (or so I thought!) and it basically always turned out perfectly.

I made bread again this week, and again the dough was not the right texture (I use the bread machine to knead it, so I know there should have been no difference in the time/intensity of the kneading!), it took extra flour, and the loaves sunk substantially during baking. When I pulled out my bread (this oven has no window) I was shocked to see that my loaves were about half the size they would normally be. The bottom was dense and the top was so bubbly that it had sunk.

What could possibly be so different between here and Ohio?! Sometimes I wish bread-making weren't such a science. If any of you have any ideas for me, I'm ready to hear them. :)

I brought my wheat and grain mill, so the flour should be the same. I couldn't bring my honey, oil, or milk (obviously), but I wouldn't think those would affect the bread very much.

If I were just looking at the bread and trying to diagnose the issue, I'd say it looks like I used soft wheat (pastry flour) instead of hard wheat, since the texture is NOT right. But I was using right from a brown 50-pound bag that was labeled "Prairie Gold Hard White Wheat" so I don't think I could have accidentally gotten the wrong kind of wheat.

So, I spent the day feeling depressed every time I looked at the pathetic loaves that should have been delicious homemade wheat bread.

And then I planned some meals like French toast and grilled cheese, and now the bread is almost gone.

I'm going to try again tomorrow. I have to try again. I mean, I do have a grain mill and wheat. And memories of the bread I made in Ohio... I just hope I can figure it out. When we lived in Missouri (for 2 years) I never could figure out what was wrong about my homemade bread. And when I moved back to Ohio, it was instantly solved and turned out great. Strange!!

I love using whole chickens! My oven-roasted chicken is a favorite of Joshua's and it's so easy (5 minutes to season, and a cozy 2-3 hours to bake and make the house smell wonderful!).

We almost always have some leftover chicken meat from the roasted chicken, which I chop and freeze for casseroles later. (Farmhouse Chicken is a comforting winter favorite!)

The leftover chicken broth makes yummy gravy, soup stock, or homemade condensed cream of chicken soup.

Just Jane has a great photo tutorial about how she uses her whole chickens. 

For less than $5, Jane got:

7.5 quarts of chicken stock
1 nice-sized bowl of chicken salad
1 large chicken sandwich
3-4 cups leftover chicken

To participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays: Post a kitchen tip in your blog, with a link to this post. Then come here and add your name, tip subject, and URL to this post! Links must be family friendly, as always. If you don't have a blog but would still like to share a tip, just leave a comment here with your tip! Everyone's ideas are appreciated. :) Note: Please link to your individual post, not your blog's main/front page! Ask me if you have questions; links that don't go to an individual post will be deleted. Please, no giveaways since they "expire" and this is for timeless kitchen secrets! ;) Thanks for participating! :)

This picture arrived in our mailbox yesterday, and I absolutely love it!!!! Do those little faces look familiar? Yep... it's Yehoshua, Eliyahu, and Ruth (who is 10.5 months old now, for those who asked)!

I've admired the art of Hannah C. Heyer in the past, as her sister Ruth is a good friend of mine. :) I did not know, however, that Ruth was secretly commissioning artwork of our children as a gift for us! What a wonderful surprise! :)

Here are close-ups. Hannah only had photos to go by, but she managed to capture their personalities amazingly well!

Ruth, with her bangs pulled back as usual. ;) I love her hand grasping the spatula and the other hand outspread with excitement! :)

Yehoshua, the experienced big brother, wearing his apron and chef's hat. The ears, the eyes, the chin... yep, that's Yehoshua. :)

Eliyahu... grinning excitedly at the prospect of helping. :) And I think if we could see more of his shirt, we would see that he's wearing his favorite green froggie shirt yet again. ;)

You can see more of Hannah's art (she's crafty too!) at AmbitiousSnail.etsy.com. :)

The boys are both napping, so Ruth and I decided to give a tour of our kitchen cupboards and drawers. :) I'm open to advice or ideas about any of this stuff, too, so feel free to give suggestions! :)

Down-sizing before our move was a lot of fun! I dislike clutter and for some reason, having an excuse to give away things that we used on a less-frequent basis was like a wonderful de-cluttering spree for me! :) And I would much rather do without a few things than to have the cupboards jam-packed and difficult to navigate. :)

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