Following A Recipe (sorta): Taylor's Piroshki Recipe by TAYLORSMOMMY

My ex-husband LOVES pirogi. (I believe that is the proper way to spell the plural of pirozhki or "piroshki", but I may be wrong. I'm not up on my Russian and am falling back on the wikipedia article on this topic.)

At any rate, he loves those things and buys them at the fair every year. I like thinking about things that I can do for him, and so it dawned on me that although I've never heard of anyone I know cooking these things...Russians probably made them before fairs. haha

So, with amazingly little work I tracked down a recipe (and then tweaked it a bit). The original involves frying, while my recipe involves baking. I realized I could do that from reading all of the comments on the recipe, so I can't take any credit for it. I added garlic and sharp cheese.

This is the first time that I've made a bread with yeast by hand. I think it worked out great!

I ran out of eggs while making this recipe, so I'm reminding myself right now to check the amount of eggs I have before trying this again.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 pounds ground beef
• 1 red onion, chopped up fairly fine
• 1 teaspoon salt
• a few shakes ground black pepper (to taste)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons dried dill weed (alter to preference)
• 1 clove garlic, chopped
• 1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast
• 1/4 cup warm water
• 1 cup milk
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil (I used canola, and that was fine.)
• 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 4 cups all-purpose flour to start (You will add lots more.)
• Around 11 small (1-2cm cubes) sharp cheese
  
  

  Meat section:
  

  1. Brown meat in a skillet, on medium heat. I used the 3 or 4 setting on my stove.  Once the meat looks evenly brown, try to drain off the fat as much as you can. I'm sure that there are great ways to do this, but I sort of tip the pan while guarding the meat with a spatula and draining fat into a container (for later clean up).
  2. Stir in chopped red onion, salt, pepper, dill weed, and garlic. Cook until the onions seem pretty translucent.
  3. Pour meat mixture into a bowl to cool. Refrigerate.

  Bread Section

  1. Pour packet of yeast into 1/4 cup of warm (but not super hot) water. Put it in sort of a warm location, if available. Wait about 15 minutes, until the yeast becomes frothy.
  2. Heat milk in a pan over low heat. I set my burners on 1 or 2.
  3. Combine eggs, oil, sugar, and salt in a small bowl. Put two cups of flour in a different and larger bowl.
  4. When the milk gets warm, add the contents of the small bowl (eggs and such) to the milk. Use a whisk to sort of agitate the stuff gently. As soon as it looks warmed up and well mixed, remove from the burner.
  5. Slowly pour milk mixture into the flour bowl while stirring. 
  6. Add half of yeast solution to the flour bowl. Stir it.
  7. Add a cup of flour to the flour bowl. Stir it.
  8. Add last of yeast solution to the flour bowl. Stir it.
  9. Add another cup of flour to the flour bowl. Stir it.
  10. Assess the texture of the mixture, and add flour until the bread seems to be a dough that forms into a ball and isn't sticking to the bowl. (This took quite a bit of flour when I did it. I probably put another two cups or so into it.)
  11. Knead it to make sure it is evenly mixed, but don't mix it a bunch after it seems pretty even.
  12. Cover the bowl with a clean cloth and set in a warm location. Give it at least 30 minutes. (I didn't notice the dough really rising, but I got tired of waiting after 30 minutes and just did my thing.)

  Putting It Together

  1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
  2. Get out two cookie sheets, and cover in parchment paper.
  3. Uncover bread dough bowl, and retrieve meat bowl.
  4. Pinch off a handful of dough and roll into a small pizza like disk about 4-5 inches in diameter.
  5. Put at least two heaping tablespoons of meat mixture in the middle. 
  6. Put a cheese cube in the center of the meat mixture.
  7. Close the dough over the meat, and pinch closed.
  8. Roll them slightly in your hands, smoothing any rough bits out. 
  9. Place completed meat/dough sphere on parchment paper covered cookie sheets.
  10. Do steps 4-9 approximately 11 times. In other words, make balls of meat until you run out of stuff.
  11. Let them all sit for about 10 minutes before cooking.
  12. Place in the oven and bake for 18 minutes.

 Verdict: These are awesome! Everyone in the house ate them up, and wanted a whole lot more. My only regret was that I thought that they could have had more meat to the amount of bread. I really liked these, although the prep time on this is sort of outrageous (at least for me). If you don't mind a project, they are well worth the time.

Right out of the oven

Action shot of it being delivered to the ex-husband.

Natural light. The bread really did turn out nice!

YUM!

Baked Zucchini, Yellow Squash, and Purple Potatoes

I sort of winged it, and it turned out decent. The potatoes would have been better if they were cooked for a bit longer though, so I'd tweak that somehow if you decide to do this at home.

Recipe:

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
2. Take (something like) three yellow squash, four zucchinis, and four small purple potatoes and wash and peel them. Cut them up into small pieces, and put all of the pieces in a large mixing bowl.
3.  Add olive oil (~2tbsp), garlic powder (~2 tsp), salt (~2 tsp), pepper (~2 tsp), chili powder (~ 1/2 tsp), oregano (~2 tbsp), parsley (~1 tbsp), and a splash of Worcestershire sauce. You're going to have to trust your gut on all of these, and add what seems right to you. I can tell you that I did something like this, and it ended up SPICY and PEPPERY.
4. Use your hands to sort of distribute the spices and oil all over the veggies.
5. Coat a roasting pan with olive oil, and pour the veggies into it.
6. Cook about 25 minutes

Verdict:  
This was super tasty to me, and to my husband! It was mega spicy and peppery though, and I would probably cut the pepper back in the future. Nobody else wanted any part of this dish. It smelled wonderful. I liked eating it with cheese and bread crumbs sprinkled on top, and think I might make a casserole like that in the future. The purple potatoes definitely needed more time, and I think in the future I may want to give them a head start somehow.

Plain

With Sprinkles!

~Patty

Following a Recipe: Baked Kale Chips by LucyDelRey

This year my housemate grew some organic kale, which is awesome...except that you can't really eat kale without doing something to it.

Well, I guess you can.

I just don't know why you would want to.

It is beautiful and easy to grow out here in the Pacific Northwest.

Behold the power of kale!

I was going to bring in a few plants and sauté them, but then things went sideways. I decided to make chips, and I found this recipe for Baked Kale Chips Recipe by LucyDelRey.

I didn't really follow the thing to the letter at all.

Here is the gist:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Get some kale, and take off all of the individual leaves. Wash the kale leaves, and sort of shake them dry. 
3. Take out the tough middle stem parts, and tear into bite sized pieces.
4. Put all of the leaf pieces on some cookie sheets covered in parchment paper.
5. Drizzle with olive oil. I am not good at "drizzling", so I pour some into a tablespoon and drizzle with the spoon. It helps me keep track of how much I am using, and limits catastrophes.
6. Shake some season salt over the leaves. (I think that in the future I want to experiment with my own mixtures of spices.)
7. Bake for about 10 minutes (or until edges are brown).

I think that I probably should have baked mine for less than 10 minutes, personally. They were definitely crumbly.

Verdict:  They made the house smell bad, in my opinion. They were pretty tasty to me though, and addictive. I ate about half the kale without even thinking about it. My child, who hates all green things, voluntarily ate some and liked them. My housemate wasn't pleased by these at all, and made some wistful comments about how it might have tasted if the kale was prepared otherwise...and compared the chips to eating dry tarragon. My mom thought that they were tasty. I'm not sure if I'll do this one again or not. It is definitely fast!

This is what the process looked like:

Raw Kale

Drizzled and Salted

Baked Kale

~ Patty :)

Wikipedia Article on Kale:
"Kale is very high in beta carotene, vitamin K, vitamin C, lutein, zeaxanthin, and reasonably rich in calcium. Kale, as with broccoli and other brassicas, contains sulforaphane (particularly when chopped or minced), a chemical with potent anti-cancer properties.^[1] Boiling decreases the level of sulforaphane; however, steaming, microwaving, or stir frying do not result in significant loss.^[2] Along with other brassica vegetables, kale is also a source of indole-3-carbinol, a chemical which boosts DNA repair in cells and appears to block the growth of cancer cells.^[3][4] Kale is also a good source of carotenoids.^[5]"

Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies with White Chocolate Chips

I pretty much followed a recipe on this one, with some really minor alterations.

I was having a five alarm sweet tooth emergency at 11pm or so, and tried to imagine what my mouth wanted. It answered chocolate and oats. I looked around for a recipe and found Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies by Norcal. I didn't go too far afield with this, as I'd had some unfortunate hamburger recipe issues earlier in the day (which I'll write about soon).

I didn't have semi-sweet chocolate chips, but I had some leftover white chocolate ones. I like a bit more vanilla in my cookies, and I also needed to cook these longer than was stated in the original recipe.

Darn good cookies, actually.

Ingredients

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 cup margarine
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1 egg
• 2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 1/4 cups rolled oats
• 1/2 cup white chocolate chips

1.  Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Mix flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon in a bowl with a whisk.
3. Mix margarine, brown sugar and white sugar in a different bowl. Then mix in the egg and vanilla. 
4. Mix the two bowls together, slowly bringing the dry ingredients into the wet ones and mixing a bit after each bit is added. 
5. Mix in oats and choco chips.
6. Put parchment paper on a cookie sheet. (I cannot sing the praises of parchment paper enough!)
7. Spoon out the cookie mixture onto the cookie sheet. I liked 1 tablespoon sized spoonfuls. 
8. Cook for about 11 1/2 minutes. (The original recipe said 8-10, but that didn't work for me very well.)
9. Remove from oven and let them sit on the hot sheet for 5 minutes, then put them on a cooling rack.

 Verdict:

My child ate some, but wasn't in love with them.
I adored these cookies, and so did my partner.  I think that I might want to double this recipe in the future, because I'm going to be out of cookies fast. I think these are some of the best ones that I've baked so far.

~Patty