Savory Whole Wheat Monkey Bread

When I was in 5th grade I read a book about a group of kids who were trying to raise or save money for..something, I'm not sure and that's not the the point, it's how they did it! They decided to make... toothpaste. Seriously. I swear this wasn't just one of my super odd dreams. I remember thinking 'you can't make toothpaste!' and I was amazed that they did. They even had a recipe for the toothpaste in the back of the book. I was impressed and I started looking at everything around me and wondering how to make it myself (one thing that kept me up at night- what was in windex? why was it blue? Oh, the things I concerned myself with seem so strange now, but they seemed so vital at the time).

I bring this up because I have those 'toothpaste' moments a lot lately. You can make wheat thins? goldfish crackers? That just blows my mind. Maybe you already knew that, and if you did- why didn't you tell me?? Hello! Share please! 

Since I beg you to share, it only seems fair to share one of my favorite 'oh no you didn't' moments in the kitchen recently. I make bread. No really, like homemade bread. What? That's no big deal? Well, it's whole wheat or whatever, so there's that. And it's easy. Seriously. I mix up a few ingredients in a big ol' tub and put it in the fridge, then I take out a chunk when I get home from work and turn it into a cute little loaf of bready fabulousness. I use this whole grain recipe and I love having it in my fridge.

So, when I saw this savory monkey bread recipe I thought I had to give it a try using the bread dough I already had in my fridge. What a cheater- I know! But isn't that the thing with 'traditional' (ha!) monkey bread? Don't people use biscuit dough or the like? I thought I was having a stroke of genius. I rolled out the dough. I diligently cut it up and rolled it around in delicious dill butter. Then I baked it and gobbled it up. Well, some of it. Then I tried a bit more. But. Hm. It was missing something. Yep. Missing something for sure. Don't you just hate that?

my hopes were so high

I thought it was maybe a 7 out of 10. It was good and the dill butter was phenomenal. I was afraid of dill before this (don't laugh) but now I'm totally in love with it. That's why I chose to include some rosemary. But I felt like I was left with an unsatisfied feeling in both. Maybe it was those amazing pictures from the recipe, maybe they set my expectations too high. It was good, and I'd make it again, but I wanted this to really float my boat and it didn't.

a little rosemary action

I thought it had so much potential though, so much so that I made it again the next day but made a batch of the dough that went with the original recipe, but I made it whole wheat-ish. It smelled so amazing, but it tasted pretty much the same to me (don't hate!). It did get me thinking though and I loved using my super easy bread dough to make something very different. It's these experiences that keep me coming back to cooking even when I'm tired or feeling burnt out. I'm just too curious to leave it be. I love when I'm cooking and I think 'what if...' I'm going to attempt some more savory monkey bread recipes soon. I'll let you know how that goes. And if you do, by all means, share!


If you want to make anything from above here are the links for your reference:


Whole What Bread Dough with Vital Wheat Gluten

Savory Monkey Bread with Dill Butter 

Enjoy!
-m

Bacon Bourbon Brownies

My favorite dessert item would be, hands down, brownies. I adore them. As a kid, I once ordered an ice cream sundae without the ice cream just to get a brownie with hot fudge on it. I really appreciate a good brownie.

My favorite brownies are the fudgey (how do you spell that?), almost chewy, dotted with melted chocolate within, and warm. I used to use boxed brownie mixes a heck of a lot. After the past year of trying an excessive amount of brownies from scratch, I know now why I never strayed from the box. Fudgy brownies from scratch are not, in my opinion, easy. Cakey brownies from scratch- super easy.



These brownies looked so good in the pictures in the magazine, I was sold before I even realized they had the added wondefulness of bacon and bourbon.



These were fun to make, my kitchen smelled amazing! These were pretty good tasting, but a bit cakey for my taste.(Did I mention that I'm a kinda picky eater of brownies?) It could be that after 40 minutes, they were done done done- my oven runs hot, even when I adjust for that it seems to make my baked goods cook up a bit faster. The recipe calls for taking them out when they are 'wobbly' in the middle, I bet that would work magically.



Bacon Bourbon Brownies with Pecans
from Food & Wine Magazine Aug, 2011

makes 24 brownies

ingredients

1/2 cup pecans
1/2 pound bacon, sliced
8 ounces bittersweet chopped chocolate
2 ounces unsweetened chopped chocolate
1 stick & 2 tbs unsalted butter
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
3 tbs bourbon
4 large eggs
1 tsp salt
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 cups flour

Preheat your oven to a toasty 350 degrees. Use some parchment paper to line a 9x9in square baking dish.

Toast the pecans in a pie plate for about 8 minutes in the preheating oven. After they have cooled off a bit, chop them coarsely.

Cook the bacon in a skillet ans save 3 tablespoons of the fat. When the bacon has cooled, chop it up.

In a saucepan, mix the two chocolates with the butter and stir over low heat until it's all melted. Pour it into a large bowl and mix in both sugars and the bacon fat. Next, beat in the bourbon. Then add the eggs and salt, mix it until smooth. Lastly, stir in the cocoa powder and flour.

Pour the batter into the pan and sprinkle the bacon and pecans on top (I think I went a bit overboard, use as much or as little of it as you like). Bake for 40-50 minutes. You want the edges to be set but the middle to be wobbly.

Let them cool completely, then cut them into squares and serve!

Enjoy!
-m

Whole Wheat Pepperoni Calzones

On Friday night we planned a good three hour drive to head to the mountains for the weekend. Usually, we eat on the road, grabbing a burger or finding a deli to get some grub. This time though, I wanted to keep it cheap and use food we already had on hand. I had all the fixings for a few little pizzas, I just had to make the dough.. which I wanted to experiment with. I also wanted to make the pizzas easier to eat on the run, meaning I was making calzones! I love all things pizza related.

I was searching and searching for a good whole wheat pizza dough recipe. The problem is that I've been spoiling myself with Alton Brown's recipe, this means that every other recipe seems to fall flat.

So I started wondering, what if I just substitute half the bread flour for whole wheat flour? I kept searching but this question was nagging at me. So, that's what I did. The recipe calls for two cups of flour, I used one cup regular old flour (not even the bread flour he asks for, I'm out!) and one cup of whole wheat flour. I was so hopeful.



I made the dough Thursday night, and on Friday it had risen and was ready for me. But, it felt a bit odd. It never, even after an hour of being in the mixer, got the 'bakers window' that makes the dough so fabulous. Bummer. Oh well.

I made the calzones pretty small. The dough makes two smallish pizzas, I cut the dough in half, then into fourths. This made good, hand held sized calzones.



Have you ever been slapped by hot pepperoni? You bite into a delicious calzone, pull your bite away and whack! You get hit by hot, sauce covered pepperoni right on your chin. I have, and it's a problem I was aching to solve. That's why I cut the pepperoni into fourths- these small pepperoni pieces worked fabulously.

Did I over think this? I think not.

After I put all the goodies on half of the dough circle thing (which I rolled out using a rolling pin, because the dough was not stretching well), I painted a little water around the egdes and folded it over.



I cook it the same way I cook my pizzas: HOT HOT oven. I used my 'pizza stone', which is actually a terra cotta planter bottom. It works like a dream. They only took 6-7 minutes each. Quickness!




Here is the good stuff. You can see that the dough was very thin, admittedly it was kind of cracker-like. However, the insides were sooo good.

After they all cooled off, I wrapped them in little napkins and put them in a box so they could travel with us unharmed. It worked like a dream! Now, to just tweak the dough recipe so that I get that chewy texture I was missing..



Whole Wheat Pizza/Calzone Recipe
adapted from Alton Brown


Ingredients

2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon pure olive oil
3/4 cup warm water
1 cup bread flour (I used AP flour, but prefer the bread flour if you've got it!)
1 cup whole wheat flour (as I mentioned above, next time I might adjust this ratio a bit, feel free to tweak it)
1 teaspoon instant yeast
2 teaspoons olive oil
Olive oil, for the pizza crust
Flour, for dusting the pizza peel

Toppings:
1 1/2 ounces pizza sauce (for the calzone, I used about 1 1/2 tbsp)
1/2 teaspoon each chopped fresh herbs such as thyme, oregano, red pepper flakes (I used basil in mine as well)
A combination of 3 grated cheeses such as mozzarella, Monterey Jack, provalone, or fontina.

Directions
Place the sugar, salt, olive oil, water, flours and yeast into the mixer's work bowl. (I proof my yeast first, out of habit, so in goes a watery, yeasty mess- I just follow the yeast package instructions there)

Mix the dough on low using the paddle attachment. Then switch to the hook and knead for 15-20 minutes. Check the dough by tearing off a piece and stretching it out a bit, if it tears you need to knead it more! With the whole wheat, I found that it tore even after about 45 minutes of kneading. If you used all bread flour, this would not happen. Just a note. You are looking for a stretchy, taught dough.

When the dough is ready, take it out of the bowl and gently roll it into a ball on your countertop. Place it in a large bowl with a bit of olive oil to keep it from getting dry or sticking. Cover it with plastic wrap and stick it in the fridge overnight.

Ready to get to work? Put your pizza stone or other contraption in the oven, on the bottom rack. Then crank the oven up really high, around 500 degrees.

Split the pizza into two balls. If you are going for plain pizza stop here and shape the dough and dress it, for handheld calzones, cut the two dough balls into fourths. Use a rolling pin to shape the dough into circles.

On the thin dough circles place the sauce, herbs, then on half of the dough put the cheese and pepperoni. Using a pastry brush apply some water around the edge of the dough (just a tiny tiny bit, I only put it on half of the dough edge) to help prevent the good stuff from seeping out. Gently fold the dough in half and pinch the edges together. Cut three tiny slits in the top of the dough.

Place on pizza stone in super hot oven and bake for about 5-7 minutes. Check for doneness. Let cool for 5 minutes before eating.

Enjoy!
-m