10×10 in 2010

Archive for the ‘Recipes’ Category

This week’s recipe – whole wheat pizza dough!

Instead of posting the whole recipe, here’s the link to it over at allrecipes.com.

It was DELICIOUS

Not wanting to starve the rest of the family, who were nervous about what it might taste like, I made two other pizzas.  The second pizza was 50/50 whole wheat and bread flour, and the last pizza was bread flour only (It’s the second pizza, in the background there.)

The kids STUFFED themselves while we watched the first two quarters of the Superbowl.  Out of the three pizzas, the kids favored the meat & cheese pizza, and the adults enjoyed the blended and the wheat.  All three turned out quite well, so the recipe was a great success.

One addition we made was brushing a bit of olive oil along the outside crusts before cooking the pizza.  That turned out particularly well; the crust was nice and moist.

Breakfast burritos are one of my favorite foods.  In fact, I’m a sucker for just about anything you can wrap in a tortilla.  They’re a perfect wrap for lots of different foods. Flour tortillas tend to have a decent amount of fat, and I was looking for a recipe that had more fiber and less fat.  This recipe does just that, and it’s a crazy-simple recipe.  Here goes!

(Full disclosure – I don’t make these things up, I get them from other places!  This one’s from CDKitchen, and you can find the original recipe here.)

Makes: 12 9″ tortillas  (Yep, it made 12 – size depends on how flat you roll them out!)

Ready in: 30 minutes (well, not so much.  See notes below…)

Ingredients

• 3 cups whole-wheat flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup warm water

Directions

1. 

   Tortilla Rolled-Out, with Dough Ball

   Mix the dry ingredients together into a large mixing bowl.  Mix in a little bit of the warm water at a time (don’t just dump it in), until all the water is into the mixture and it forms a crumbly dough.

2. Flip the dough out of the bowl onto a board / counter, and knead by hand until it’s smooth. (This takes a little while! I might just be inexperienced…)
3. Divide the dough into 12 equal-sized pieces and roll them into smooth balls.  Put the balls back in the mixing bowl and cover them with plastic wrap.  Let them rest for 15 minutes. (I have no idea why the dough needs to rest…I did all the work.)
4. While the dough’s taking a nap, heat up a skillet to medium / medium-high heat. (about 375 degrees)
5. For each tortilla, flatten a ball into a 4-5″ patty, then roll it out to 9″.
6. Lay the tortilla out on the (dry) skillet.  Small blisters should form right away.  Immediately flip the tortilla over.
7. Large blisters will start to form – press the tortilla down all over with a wide spatula, gently but firmly.  Turn the tortilla and continue to press down. The blisters should turn golden-brown, the tortilla should remain soft.
8. Place the tortillas inside a plastic bag, wrapped in a towel.  The moisture will keep them soft while you cook the rest of the tortillas.

If the tortilla burns or sticks, turn the heat down a bit.

What I Learned

This was a fun, easy recipe to make!  At a little over an hour, it took longer than the recipe suggested, though.  I learned a few things.

First, be patient about working the water into the dough – resist the urge to add extra water to blend it in more quickly, and just keep kneading.

Second, the dough dries out really quickly.  Making this into a small assembly-line project would a) make it go faster, and b) keep the dough from drying out, and c) be a great excuse for a party.

Third, wow the dough is stretchy!  And even three days later they’re still very flexible.  Keep them in a ziplock bag in the refrigerator.  I don’t know if it helps, but I try to suck the air out of the bag when I put them away.

If you give these a try, let me know how it goes! And give the nice people at CDKitchen the credit – they came up with the original recipe.

If you’re like me, mornings are a rush to get up, get ready, and get out the door.  This recipe for breakfast burritos takes 5 minutes to make and will hold you over to lunch without holding you back.

Ingredients

• 2 Eggs
• Hot Sauce (I like Frank’s RedHot)
• A dash of water
• 2 Flour Tortillas (6″-7″)
• 2 oz. colby-jack cheese

Directions

Lightly spray the inside of a small microwave-safe bowl with cooking spray (this makes the bowl *much* easier to clean later.) Crack the two eggs into the bowl and add a dash of water. Add 2-3 dashes of hot sauce (keeps the eggs from inflating when they’re cooked). Scramble well with a fork.

Put the eggs in the microwave for 2:15 (two minutes, 15 seconds) – Your mileage may vary depending on microwave power, etc.

While the eggs are cooking, put the two tortillas on a plate, add an ounce of cheese down the middle of each tortilla, and add hot sauce to taste.

When the eggs are done, cut them into strips with a butter knife, then slide half into each tortilla.

Roll up the tortillas and enjoy breakfast!

Oats + Bamix = Oat Powder

After a mostly successful first attempt at making Black Bean Burgers, I decided to have another go for lunch today.  Keeping in mind Heather’s preference for *not spicy*, and a general desire to cut down on grains, we made a few adjustments to the recipe.

Recipe Revisions

• Drain & rinse the beans. A colander worked well for this, then after a few minutes to drain, spread the beans out on a paper towel to soak up even more moisture.
• Reduce the spices. Cut the chili powder down from 1 tablespoon to 1/2 tablespoon, and the Frank’s RedHot from 1 teaspoon to 1/2 teaspoon.  We left the cumin and garlic alone.
• Cut down the grains. Instead of using bread crumbs, Heather did a quick search and found that oats make a good substitute.  I got to learn what the grinder attachment does for the Bamix mixer! (That’s the Bamix in the photo, with the grinder attachment – best kitchen tool ever, next to a sharp paring knife.) It also only need a shade over half a cup, instead of the nearly two cups of bread crumbs (partly because I drained the beans this time…)
• Cut down the onion. The original recipe calls for half an onion, but I don’t think it meant the mutant-onion-that-ate-Detroit that I went with the first time.  We used a more respectively-sized chunk of onion this time.

Results

Outstanding!  There was just enough for 4 good-sized burgers, and while they still had some bite, it wasn’t overwhelmingly spicy.  Heather proclaimed them tasty.  In fact, she’s heading to the store for ingredients so I can make a couple dozen burgers and freeze them.

We’ll chalk this recipe up as a solid success!  If you get the chance to try the recipe out, add a comment below to let me know how it works out.

Who knew a can of black beans, half an onion, half a green pepper, an egg, some breadcrumbs and a handful of spices would be so delicious?  Easy preparation, quick grill on the stove (no fat means no grease spatter), and excellent texture and taste.  One thing to note, to avoid burning them, keep a careful eye.  Because there’s next to no fat, they don’t sizzle like a meat burger as a warning; actually, they sizzle for a few seconds while the surface moisture cooks off, then they, well, sit there.

My tastes run to the spicier, so these were absolutely delicious to me.  The recipe indicates it serves four (4 patties), but even with relatively large burgers, we were able to make six burgers.  Heather didn’t care for them so much – too spicy.  We’ll cut the spice components in half next time we make this recipe.

Ingredients

• 1 can Black Beans (15.5 oz is fine)
• 1/2 Onion (Medium-sized onion)
• 1/2 Green bell pepper (Medium-sized pepper)
• 1/2 Cup bread crumbs
• 1 Tbsp chili powder
• 1 Tbsp cumin
• 1 tsp hot sauce (we used Frank’s RedHot)
• 1 Egg
• 3 Garlic gloves, peeled
  • (We used 3 tsp of garlic powder for the first run, since we were out of garlic, seemed to work ok)

Put an iron griddle on the stove on medium-high heat and let it warm up while mixing the ingredients.

Drain, rinse and then *dry* the black beans to remove excess water.  We missed this step, so had to add an extra cup of bread crumbs to get the mixture to the right consistency for patties.

Put the beans in a medium-size bowl and use a fork to mash them into paste.  Drying the beans will also help with this since they won’t be so slippery.

Use a food processor to blend up the garlic, pepper and onions.

Drop all of the ingredients into the bowl and blend them thoroughly.

Add extra breadcrumbs if needed to get the bean dough sticky enough.  As I mentioned earlier, drying the beans first will help reduce the amount of carbs you’re pouring in at this point.

Make some patties and throw them on the now-heated grill.  You shouldn’t need any spray – the moisture in the burgers was plenty, and we just used a metal spatula to flip them after a couple of minutes.

Throw on a multi-grain bun with some lettuce, tomato and ketchup!