HR 2749: Totalitarian Control of the Food Supply

HR 2749: Totalitarian Control of the Food Supply

Shared via AddThis

Please read this article. Read up on the bill. Our food supply is going to be controlled by the government soon, to the point that we will not be much different from many of the third world nations who have to fight to keep their food from the government. We are very close to that edge.

Havarti and Ham Herb Brioche

I got the idea for this from a comment that a friend made. She told me how she used to work in a bakery, and how the favorite item was the Havarti Dill and Ham Brioche that the bakery would sell. I had been wanting to make the Brioche from Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day, and this sounded like a perfect experiment.

I am not a big fan of dill, so I took the herb mixture from my favorite Herb Peel-Away Bread, doubled it to fit the amount of dough in the Brioche recipe from ABin5, and then got myself some plain creamy Havarti cheese, and some ham. I would have gotten some nice, maple honey ham from the deli, but they were closed up by the time I actually made it to the store, so I had to settle for cheap ham from the packaged section. Nothing terrible, but the deli stuff would be really good in this.


So, here is my recipe for the Havarti and Ham Herb Brioche.

Havarti and Ham Herb Brioche

Make a batch of the Brioche dough from ABin5. To the dough add:

2 Tablespoons dried Parsley
1 teaspoon dried Basil
1 teaspoon crushed Rosemary (try to find the crushed stuff, you don't want big rosemary leaves getting caught in your teeth)
1 teaspoon dried Thyme

Mix it all up and allow the dough to rest overnight. It is much easier to work with when cold and you need the dough to have set for a good amount of time.

3-4 ounces thick sliced ham
3-4 ounces thick sliced turkey
4-6 ounces creamy havarti cheese, plain

When your dough is ready, chop up a few pieces of ham and/or turkey. You can use whatever kind of ham or turkey you want, just dice it nicely so that it will go into the dough easily. Shred or dice some havarti, maybe 1/2 to 3/4 cup or so.


Flour the top of the dough, as well as your hands. Have a little flour on the side to help with stickiness. You don't want to over flour these, but you don't want them sticking to your hands either. Look for a nice balance.

Take a piece of dough roughly 3 ounces.

Flatten it out a bit and make a well with the dough. Fill with a little bit of Havarti, some ham, turkey or both, and a little more Havarti.


Close the dough around the filling, and place in a very well greased muffin tin. Do this 12 times (or 24 if you want to do two muffin tins). Make a nice little indent in the top of each brioche. Take a walnut sized piece of dough, roll it into a nice little ball, and place it on top of each of the brioche (this will be your top-knot).


Turn your oven on to 350 degrees. Allow your dough to rest for about 20-30 minutes or so, or until they've risen a bit. You don't quite want it to double, but you want it to have sufficient rising time.

Brush with your egg wash, andake for about 30 minutes or so, or until the bread is a beautiful golden brown. Allow to cool for a few minutes, pop out of the muffin tins, and eat warm.

I just barely managed to save a few of these to freeze and reheat, which would make a wonderful backup lunch for my husband. I'll let you know how well they reheat. **they reheated pretty nicely from the fridge**

As my husband and I were talking about these, we started coming up with some other ideas too. I thought about using an Italian herb mix, and filling these with some Provolone, mozzarella and pepperoni, to make some little pizza bread brioches. I could probably do some turkey and havarti or another type of cheese as well. The possibilities are endless :) My husband said they're like little hot pockets, but way better.

Homemade Granola Bread

When I saw this recipe in Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day, I was a bit skeptical at first. But, the homemade granola looked easy enough, and modifiable to my liking, so I figured I'd try the bread out at the same time.

I made up a batch of granola (which I couldn't stop munching on while it was cooling). I did modify it a touch though...I left out the sesame seeds and dried fruits (keeping the raisins), and I used sliced almonds in place of the pecans. It turned out very good. I mixed up a batch of the bread dough, let it rise, and stuck it in the fridge overnight.

This morning, I shaped the dough into my loaf pan, realized that the instructions for the egg wash weren't included, checked online for them (just to be sure), did the egg wash and sprinkled with more granola (took a few more bites of granola, mmmm), and then popped it into the oven. Hopefully it rose long enough, though it seemed like it could have gone longer. I went by sight more than timing, and it "looked" like it was doubled in size, so we'll see.

The bread cooked up beautifully, and tastes very good. I don't have any pictures at the moment, but hopefully a little later. The only thing this bread needs is a little butter and cinnamon sugar, but I'm out of butter so that will have to wait.

So Let Me Get This Straight...

If I don't mow my lawn, I could be fined and lose my driver's license. But, if the city decides to leave the grass growing in a public park, and a person decides to mow it for them, for free, he is the one fined, not the city.

Now how does that work?

Wontons

I started making these wontons when I was in 7th grade. That was a very long time ago :) It started out as a foreign foods project for Social Studies. I ended up with China. So I went to the library, and started looking through all the cookbooks for Chinese cooking. I managed to find one that looked interesting. The cover was yellow, with red writing. I don't remember what the name of the cookbook was though, otherwise I'd probably be trying to find it now.

So, I looked through the recipes, looking for something that wasn't too "weird" or called for strange ingredients I'd never heard of. The first one I found was the recipe for Wontons. They looked relatively easy, and we had most of the ingredients available. The one thing we couldn't find was Chinese Parsley, which I found out many years later was actually cilantro. But, I hate cilantro so I stuck with our substitute of regular parsley.

Over the years I've tweaked this recipe to the point where I really don't even measure anything, I just add it until things look right, or smell right, or whatever pleases me that day. The liquids usually stay roughly the same (although I'll add a few extra squirts of soy sauce usually), but the dry ingredients usually get upped a bit, especially the ginger root. I love ginger root, and add probably about 10 times what the recipe calls for. It makes these taste soooooo good.

So, without further ado, here are my instructions for making some very good wontons. I will share the original amounts, but you can always feel free to increase or decrease whatever you like.

Wontons

1 whole boneless chicken breast, cooked
2 scallions
1 thin slice ginger root
¼ cup fresh parsley
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon cornstarch
2 teaspoons soy sauce
½ teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
1 tablespoon oil
1 pkg. wonton wrappers or egg roll wrappers cut into 4ths.
1 egg, lightly beaten
Oil for frying


Mince and mix the first 4 ingredients in a medium bowl. In a small bowl mix the remaining ingredients (excluding the wrappers and the egg). Combine both mixtures and allow to stand for 30 minutes. Place a teaspoon of mixture in the center of a wonton wrapper. Using a chopstick or the back of a spoon, place a small amount of egg around two edges of the wrapper. Fold the wrapper in half, touching the sides with egg to the sides without egg, forming a triangle. The egg will seal the edges shut. Deep fry in oil until a deep golden brown. Serve warm or chilled.

Lemon Poppyseed Almond Brioche "Bostock", Continued

Well, I've got it baking right now, and so far, it looks pretty good. I had trouble with the dough though. Being that it's such a wet dough, it does make it difficult to work with. I think I may have rolled it a bit thin, too. So when I put it in the freezer, it ended up spreading out quite a bit. So I just sort of rolled it over on itself, which will make for some interesting swirls... though I don't think they'll be well defined at all. Even after a 20 minute set in the freezer, they were still pretty loose. However, they're looking good, and baking away.

Now, for this recipe, I ended up making a homemade almond paste. I love the texture of homemade almond paste much more than the storebought stuff, and it's really pretty easy. Here is the recipe I use:

Homemade Almond Paste
Ingredients:
• 1-1/2 cups blanched almonds
• 1-1/2 cups confectioners' sugar
• 1 egg white
• 1-1/2 teaspoons almond extract
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
Directions:
Place almonds in a food processor; cover and process until smooth. Add the confectioners' sugar, egg white, extract and salt; cover and process until smooth.
Divide almond paste into 1/2-cup portions; place in airtight containers. Refrigerate for up to 1 month or freeze for up to 3 months. Yield: 1-1/2 cups.

I then pulled out 1/2 cup for the Bostock recipe. Which is starting to overflow in the pan by the way.... I think I had too much dough. I need to work on those measurements again... It does smell good though.
40 minutes didn't seem to be long enough.... when I turned it over there was still some raw dough on the bottom. So, back in the oven for another 10 minutes. We'll see how that goes...

And another 5 minutes just because I still don't think it looked quite cooked (thought much closer than last time...)


Mmmm... much better. And pretty. This looks so pretty with the poppyseed in the dough. This turned out very well :) I can taste the almond cream mixed in throughout the dough, and the poppyseeds, like I said, make it so pretty. And then there are the yummy sugary almonds on top... Mmmmm! I will definitely try this again soon. Hopefully with actual raw almonds for the almond paste instead of roasted and salted (a little purchasing mishap). It's still good though :) Maybe I'll even break down and use that storebought almond paste just to see how well it works.

Lemon Poppyseed Almond Brioche "Bostock"

I have been reading through Artisan Bread In 5 Minutes A Day for a few weeks now, and I just love the book. The concept of minimal input for maximum output is just great. My husband and children love having fresh bread at almost every dinner, and I love trying different ways to vent the bread. I am planning on using the next batch of dough to teach my two oldest how to mix the dough and how to shape the dough when it's ready to be baked. It's so easy they really can do it, and I know they will be happy to help with the meals a little more.

So anyway, as well as reading the book (which you really must buy), I have been following their website. There have been some very good ideas of how to make variations of their doughs, with different recipes using already made bread, as well as variations on the doughs themselves. The most recent one was a recipe for a Lemon Poppyseed Brioche dough, which was used to make little "muffins". It didn't turn out too bad, but I'm a muffin girl when it comes to lemon poppyseed, so it seemed a bit odd to me. It tasted good, don't get me wrong, but the texture just didn't seem right with the flavor.

So, I remembered reading in the book about an Almond Brioche "Bostock". Looking through the book, I found it. A simple brioche dough (which in this book, really is simple), rolled up with an almond cream, cut up like cinnamon rolls, topped with more almonds, and baked. I even found this example while searching for an image of what Bostock should look like, and it looks very tasty.

Now, onto today. I have a bucket of Lemon Poppyseed Brioche dough that needs to be used, and no immediate desire to make more "muffins". Enter Lemon Poppyseed Almond Brioche "Bostock". Using the dough from this variation on the website, filling it with the almond cream, changing everything from orange to lemon, I hope will produce something tasty and pretty.

I will be making this recipe today, and posting it this afternoon.