Foody Friday - Dakota Bread and a star rating from DR.

I found this recipe on an app on my phone. I've made egg bread before but I was intrigued at using cottage cheese in bread. It's sweet like egg bread but a bit more substantial than other egg bread recipes I've tried. I just love the golden color too! 

After last week's Cabbage Casserole that DR sneered at, he suggested that any more recipes I post should be rated by all members of our family, out of a possible 5 stars. He thinks that I find all these "wonderful" recipes that I find on the Internet are all posted by mothers who just "love them" but have family members who can't possibly choke them down. 

Whatever...men and their theories. 

Anyway, to the bread!! 

Dakota Bread

1 pkg. active dry yeast

1/2 cup warm water

2 T of canola oil

1 egg

1/2 cup cottage cheese

1/4 cup honey

1 t. salt

2 to 2 1/2 cups bread flour

3/4 cup whole wheat flour

1/4 cup rye flour

1/4 cup rolled oats

cornmeal

1 egg white

Sprinkle yeast in warm water. Stir to dissolve. 

IN a large bowl, mix oil, egg, cottage cheese, honey and salt. Add dissolved yeast and 2 cups bread flour, beating until flour is moistened. Gradually stir in whole wheat flour, rye flour and oats, plus enough bread flour to make a soft dough. 

On a floured surface, knead dough about 10 minutes or until dough is smooth and elastic. Place dough in greased bowl, cover loosly with oiled plastic wrap. Let rise in warm place until doubled in size, about 30 minutes.

Punch down dough. Shape into one round loaf. Place in a greased glass pie pan sprinkled with cornmeal. Cover with oiled plastic wrap and let rise until doubled in size, about 1 hour. 

Brush with egg white an sprinkle with wheat flour. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. If loaf is becoming too dark, cover loosely with foil that last 10-15 minutes of baking. Remove from pie pan and cool on a wire rack. 

So, to the rating of the Dakota Bread I made this week. 

I give it a 4. It was sweet and a nice treat but not a bread I'd want to eat everyday. Yip and Yap both gave this 5 stars! Drumroll please......DR gave it 3 stars; he couldn't get past the sweet taste. Granted he also considers store bought white bread a 4 1/2 star food. I'd give plain white bread 1 star for  taste and 5 stars as a coaster for my coffee cup. I'm thinking DR doesn't have taste buds anymore. 

Foody Friday - Scotch Eggs

DR and I love Scotch eggs and the best place to get them is at the Lafayette Brewing Company in Lafayette, Indiana. Alas...that's a wee bit far to drive for my favorite appetizer. Years ago we talked one of the waitresses into giving us the recipe but I've forgotten it :( 

However, I found a couple that gave me enough of a memory jog to reproduce a recipe that is almost what I remember eating at LBC. 

Start off boiling some eggs, plan on about 2 per person. 

Then peel them. 

Now assemble your ingredients; cornmeal, flour, one or two beaten eggs and some ground sausage. 

Roll the egg in cornmeal, then flatten out an egg size lump of sausage in your hand. (Sorry there aren't any pics for the next steps but my hands were a bit dirty.) Wrap the sausage around the egg and carefully pinching the edges closed. Add or remove bits of sausage as needed. Next roll your sausage/egg in flour, coat in the beaten egg and then roll/coat in cornmeal. 

Repeat until all of your eggs are covered. I place a wire rack, sprayed with cooking spray, on a cookie sheet and then place the Scotch eggs on top. Heat oven to 400 degrees and bake for 20 minutes flipping the eggs halfway through. 

Golden, right out of the oven. 

Slice into quarters and serve with spicy mustard. 

YUM!

Foody Friday - Apple and Cottage Cheese Bake

I found Apple and Cottage Cheese Bake on Spark Recipes the other day. 

It's a very simple recipe that would be perfect for a weekend breakfast or mix it up the night before and pop it in first thing in the morning and allow it to bake while you shower and dress. 

Apple and Cottage Cheese Bake

1-2 chopped apples

1/2 cup cottage cheese

2 eggs, beaten

1 cup regular oats

1/4 t. cinnamon

1/4 t. nutmeg

honey

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mixed eggs with cottage cheese, oatmeal, eggs and apples. Put mixture in a small pie plate sprayed with cooking spray. Sprinkle cinnamon and nutmeg on top. Place in oven and bake for 20-25 minutes or until done. Drizzle with honey and serve warm if desired. 

This is a very filling dish and could easily feed two people for breakfast or three kids if you are able to convince them to try such a concoction! I wasn't so lucky. My kids wouldn't touch it, of course. But I sure enjoyed it! 

Yeah, I'll definitely be eating this one again! 

Eggs - 52 Week Project

Last year I tried being a good photographer and doing a 365 project.

Well, that fizzled out after about 6 weeks. 

But a friend of mine suggested that we do a 52 week project together, more accountability that way, with a theme every week to motivate us. 

f 5.6, 1/160sec., ISO 1600

Week 1 - Egg

I only had one egg in my fridge the day I chose to shoot...but I kind of like it that way. I did a lot more editing to this photo than I normally would, mostly turning it from color to black and white and adjusting the highlights and shadows and contrast. 

f 7.1. 1/60 sec., ISO 1600

I thought it would be fun to draw on a sad face to the lonely egg and Yahoo felt the need to comfort it as it sat all alone! LOL..

Next week's photo theme - Snow. Gee, I hope I still have some by then! 

Foody Friday - Crustless Quiche

I found this recipe the other day and thought it would be interesting to try because in place of a crust, sliced fried potatoes. And I love potatoes! This version was just basic potatoes, cheese and eggs but next time I think I'll fill it with veggies. This would also be a great recipe for anyone on a gluten free diet.

Cheese and Potato Crustless Quiche

2-3 sliced potatoes

oil or butter

4 large eggs

1 cup of cottage cheese

shredded cheese (any type and any amount)

salt and pepper to taste

Optional: finely diced cooked veggies or meat or other seasonings

Preheat oven to 350 and spray pie plate with cooking spray. Thinly slice potatoes, season with salt and pepper and saute in oil until cooked. They should be soft but firm enough to handle, lightly browned. Spread the potatoes into prepared pie plate. Sprinkle cheese on top and any optional ingredients in a thin layer on top of the cheese.

Combine eggs, cottage cheese, salt and pepper in a blender, blend until uniformly combined and smooth. Pour mixture into the pie plate, completely covering whatever's already there. Bake for 25-30 minutes, till lightly browned on top. Let rest a few minutes, then serve.

Foody Friday - Stuffed Eggplant

Last month when we were in Taos we took a quick spin through the local grocery store for munchies.

As much as I would have enjoyed it, we just couldn't live on gourmet rattlesnake sausage the whole weekend. My kids and the men needed munchies.

Anyway, as we were whipping through the deli I noticed a display of stuffed eggplant slices. I just got a quick glimpse of what they had in the case but it looked like a eggplant slice stuffed with some sort of cheese mixture. Mmmm...I'd been thinking about trying something like it every since we got home.

I did a bit of Googling and found a recipe that, though it wasn't full of cheese, sounded pretty good.

Baked Eggplant Rolls: Involtini di Melanzane

Ingredients
Extra-virgin olive oil, for frying
3 medium eggplants, with the stem ends removed, cut lengthwise into 1/3-inch thick slices

Frittata:
4 large eggs
1/3 cup, plus 2 tablespoons freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
(I used whatever kind of cheese I had and it turned out fine.)
1/3 cup freshly chopped Italian parsley leaves (dried worked)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling
2 cups basic tomato sauce


Directions


In a 12-inch frying pan, pour olive oil until it sits 1-inch deep. Heat the oil over medium-high heat until it is hot, but not smoking. Add the eggplant slices and fry, in batches, until lightly browned on each side. Remove the eggplant slices to drain on paper towels


To make the frittata: whisk the eggs and the 1/3 cup Parmesan together in a bowl. Add the parsley, and season the mixture, to taste, with the salt and pepper. Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in an 8 to 10-inch nonstick frying pan over medium-high heat. Pour in the egg mixture and cook, swirling the egg mixture to cover the bottom of the pan. Cook until the omelet sets and the bottom turns a light golden brown. Invert the frittata over a clean plate and then return to the pan, top-side down, golden brown-side up. (This wasn't nearly as messy a step as it sounded.) Cook for another 1 to 2 minutes until the bottom side is also golden brown. Transfer the frittata to a cutting board and, using a sharp knife, cut into 1 1/2-inch strips. Cut each strip in half, crosswise.


Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.


Place a frittata strip in the center of each eggplant piece. A few of the longer eggplant slices will need 2 shorter strips of frittata. Roll the stuffed eggplant up from 1 end to the other and place, seam side down, in a lightly greased baking pan. The rolls should be placed side by side, somewhat tightly, together. Spoon the tomato sauce over the eggplant rolls and drizzle lightly with olive oil. Sprinkle lightly with the remaining 2 tablespoons Parmesan. Bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes. Let rest 5 minutes before serving.

This turned out REALLY well. I was surprised how good it was. Yap ate two, Yahoo ate one, Yip and DR wouldn't touch them. Go figure, they are my anti veggie men. I'll have to try this again sometime but maybe with bacon and more cheese in the egg. Doesn't that sound good? Bacon, egg, cheese and tomato sauce...yum!