My Popovers are Popping!

See, last January, I made good popovers. Then, they stopped popping. Humidity? Oven? What?

Well, I don't know what. But I tried a recipe with more liquid and cranked my oven all the way up to 500 ... and put the pan to the very back of the oven, and now they're better than ever. Completely hollow, huge popovers.

I live in a humid area and use an electric oven.

Popovers
adapted from a recipe from Food Network Kitchens
1 cup bread flour
1/2 teaspoon fine salt
1 cup whole or non-fat milk, warmed
2 tablespoons unsalted butter or oil, melted
3 large eggs
2 to 3 teaspoons canola oil

Serving suggestions: Butter and jam

Preheat the oven to 500 degrees F.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour and salt. In another bowl, whisk together the milk, butter, and eggs. Make a well in the flour, pour in the milk mixture, and whisk to make a smooth batter. Set batter aside for 10 minutes.

Put a small sploosh of canola inside a non-stick 6-cup popover pan and heat in the oven for 5 minutes. Ladle the batter into the cups and bake for 15 minutes, without opening the oven. (Do not open the oven during baking.)

Drop the temp to 400 for 5 -10 minutes.

Lower the heat to 350 degrees F. and continue to bake the popovers for 15-20 minutes, at this point they will be golden brown. Right after removing the popovers from the oven, poke each one with a paring knife to release steam. Turn popovers from the pan and serve immediately with butter and jam.

Seeduction Bread Recipe!

Okay, I need to go to Whole Foods and get another loaf of their's to compare, but I and my friends call this FINE indeed:

Note: I use a big honking KitchenAid mixer.

Lizard Eater's Seeduction Bread Recipe

The Sponge
4 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast
3/4 cup warm water
1 cup whole wheat flour

Mix together

The Dough
1 1/2 cups warm water
2 cups bread flour
2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour (I use white whole wheat flour, King Arthur)
1/2 cup gluten flour
2 1/2 tablespoons vegetable oil*
1/4 cup honey
1/2 cup molasses
1 tablespoon salt
1 cup millet
¼ cup sesame seeds
½ cup sunflower seeds
¼ cup poppy seeds
½ cup pumpkin seeds


When your sponge is ready, uncover the bowl and add the 1 1/2 cups of warm water and the 2 cups of bread flour. Stir this in very well.

Now add the 1/2 cup vital wheat gluten, 2 1/2 tablespoons vegetable oil, honey, molasses and 1 tablespoon salt. Mix these in well. Next, the seeds. Then, start adding the remaining flour about 1/2 cup at a time. Depending on your humidity, flour, and whether your aura demands it (kidding), you may need to add more than 2 ½ cups of whole wheat flour, maybe less. Because of the amount of sweetener, it will be a bit sticky. But not too sticky.

Up to now, I’ve been using the regular blade mixer attachment. Now, I switch to the dough hook. (I’ve also done this is a super-powered KitchenAid food processor with good results.)
I let it knead on speed 2 for about 8-10 minutes, but your mileage may vary. If you start smelling something sweetish, it’s not jam. It’s the machine oil in your mixer. Stop.

First Rise: because of the seeds and whole wheat, it’s going to take a while to rise. For me, it takes about 3 hours, and that’s with doing tricks like putting it on top of my dryer or even in my dryer with warm clothes. (Tell spouse to please not turn the dryer on.)

You can go ahead and make it into loaves at this point, or give it a second rise. Better flavor, the latter.

For the loaves, the rising goes faster. About an hour or so.

Bake at 350 til the internal temperature of the loaves is 205 to 210 degrees F. If you can tell if a loaf is done by thumping it on the bottom, well, bully for you.

I should tell you to wait about 30 minutes for it to cool, but that would be “do as I say, not as I do.” But try to hold out at least 10 minutes. Eat plain. Or with butter that you conveniently keep in a butter bell. Or the best … smeared with butter and sprinkled with some Vietnamese cinnamon. No sugar required.

Great for sandwiches, too. And it’s FABULOUS grilled for panini.

Eureka, It's Working!

Lizard Eater got on her scale this morning and received the happy surprise of a 2 lb loss, bringing the recent weight loss total to 8 lbs. Considering I'm getting very little exercise, and not dieting in any way, this is fabulous.

Whole Foods. Vegetables. Little trans-fats or high fructose corn syrup.

Whoo-hoo.

Oh, one of my latest things is trying to eat more oats, because they say oatmeal is so veddy veddy good for you. Problem: I can't stand oatmeal. Slimy soft stuff. Bleaugh.

Here's a way to get your oatmeal and some egg protein too. And it tastes great:

Oatmeal Pancakes

Ingredients:
1/3 cup regular oats (not instant or steel cut)
2 egg whites
1 tbsp. nonfat milk
1 tbsp. fat-free cottage cheese
1 tbsp. flour (I used whole wheat)
2 tbsp. water
Dash of cinnamon

Directions:
Combine all ingredients and hit it with your stick blender til smooth. In a skillet sprayed with nonstick spray, drop batter into pan to form 3 pancakes (or 1 big pancake). Once pancakes begin to look solid (about 3 minutes), gently flip (if possible, re-spritz the pan with nonstick spray as you flip 'em to prevent sticking). Cook for approximately 3 additional minutes, or until both sides are lightly browned and insides are cooked through.

Serving Size: Entire recipe
Calories: 177
Fat: 2g
Carbs: 27g
Protein: 12g

Not only is this filling, but it kept me full all morning.

Random Thought

I am thankful for my body. It has been "pleasingly plump" for a few years, and it has given 4 fetuses a healthy place to grow inside, and for 4 babies, it has given them lots of rich sweet milk to grow upon. For my last child, that milk helped her weather 6 months of chemotherapy. During that entire time, her blood counts never dropped. If you were to read her immune reports, you would never guess that Vincristine and Dactinomycin were coursing through her veins. Perhaps it is coincidence. Or maybe, it was the mommy milk.

In any case, on my journey of weight loss, I salute and honor my own body. It gave gifts to my husband, it gave gifts to my children.

Now, there is no need for the extra weight. I can let the pounds go freely; they will not be missed. They served their purpose. But now, the need for a sleeker body, a body full of energy, that is not carrying around excess fat stores, is what is current. A body that can run, that can fly.

I let go of the weight we no longer need.

Vanilla Bean Yogurt Cheese Chocolate Chip dip

Really, you don't need the chocolate chips.

I recently jumped at the chance to buy vanilla beans, 7 for 7.95, shipping included. And they're soft, fresh beans, too. Just amble over to amazon.com. They have a seller called J and R Mushroom that is apparently a lovely company, according to everything I've heard and read.

Going to a party tonight, what to take, what to take. Already had drained some yogurt to make yogurt cheese. Mixed that with the seeds from one vanilla bean (putting the pod into some sugar, mais oui), and some agave nectar. You could use honey; I didn't have any. Added some mini chocolate chips, but really, that's gilding the lily.

You could be healthful and serve it with some fruit dippers, but we are Girl Scout central here, so I'm taking a box of plain shortbread.

Good stuff, Maynard.

Seeduction v 2

More experimenting, trying to crack the "Seeduction Bread" code. Did 1/2 and 1/2 whole wheat flour and bread flour. Used a 2 hr sponge.

Next time:

First sponge: overnight in fridge for slow rise
Needs to be sweeter -- go get molasses, LE!
Needs a little more salt.
Used 1 cup combined seeds to 5-6 cups combined flour. Needs more, especially millet and poppy.
May add a little extra gluten to help with raising those seeds.

Seeductive Bread

I am trying to break the code for Whole Foods' Seeduction Bread. Last night's loaf, while still edible, was emphatically Not It.

Things learned:

Even with added gluten, the texture doesn't work. They don't use 100% whole wheat, and I can't either. Next try will be part whole wheat, part "bread flour."

Need a lot of sweetener. Must buy some molasses.

This first time, I made it with a sponge, but I think it also needs a slow rise in the fridge.

And I need to let its second rise go until the ultimate point. Those of you who have made bread know what I mean. The "it can't rise any more and is in danger of overrising."

More details with each experiment.