Another foodie post: Baked Ziti and Herbed Oatmeal Bread

This was dinner last night.

Again, I got the recipes from realmomkitchen. She loves bread so much that she has several recipes on different types of bread.

As for me, it was my first time to make bread. Honestly, I got all nervous about it because it was my first time to cook something with yeast. So, I approached it with the only way I know how...READ about it. Hehehe. I googled about yeast and baking, which actually led me to several great sites. If you want to learn about bread baking, check out Baking911 and theFreshLoaf. I warn you though, it may be information overload but it was information I needed. I checked out their pages on bread baking. I learned about the different types of yeast, about the First Rise and the Punch Down and the Second Rise and so much more! All the tabs in my IE had bread baking sites for about a week hehe. I made notes about the techniques on my recipe printout. That's the OC in me, on overdrive hehe.

But enough about that, it's quite embarassing - me...the bakezilla or cookzilla heehee.

I have printouts of several bread recipes from realmomkitchen and I'm excited to try them out especially that one on 45-minute cinnamon rolls and her peasant bread. Last night, I just tried her Herbed Oatmeal Bread which I paired with Baked Ziti (again, her recipe).

These turned out to be a hit with my MIL and hubby-o. I just really hope that the little boy develops a bigger appetite for solid food. So, without further ado, here are the recipes. Items in italics are my notes, I incorporated the techniques I got from the baking websites.

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Herbed Oatmeal Bread

2 cups water

1 cup rolled oats

3 tbsp butter

3-3/4 to 4-3/4 cups all-purpose flour (I used about 3-1/4 but it could use some more)

1/4 cup sugar

2 tsp salt

2 pkg Active dry yeast (I used Fleischmann's active dry yeast which sells for P145/3 pkg at Shopwise. I know, it's pricey but I couldn't experiment with yeast just yet)

1 egg (at room temperature)

1 tbsp grated parmesan cheese

1 tsp dried basil leaves

1/2 tsp dried oregano leaves (I used ground oregano so I had to use less than 1/2 tsp - about 1/4 tsp+1/8tsp)

1/2 tsp garlic powder

6 tbsp butter, melted (bring to room temp; I used only 5 tbsp - 3 +2)

1. Bring water to a boil in a medium saucepan; stir in rolled oats. Remove from heat; stir in 3 tbsp butter. Cool to 120 to 130 deg F. This should be lukewarm by the time you mix it with the yeast. Too much heat kills the yeast.

2. In a large bowl, combine 1-1/2 cups flour, sugar, salt and yeast; mix well. Here's another thing I read about yeast...you can't add salt directly with it because apparently, salt kills them too. So just set aside about 1/4 cup of the flour and mix that with the salt. Once you've mixed in the other ingredients with yeast, add in the 1/4cup flour + salt. Add this mixture to the rolled oats mixture and egg; blend at low speed until moistened. Beat 3 minutes at medium speed.

3. By hand (i.e., don't use the mixer; just use a wooden spoon or a rubber spatula), stir in an additional 1-3/4 cups (or more) flour to form a stiff dough. Add the flour half a cup at a time. When the dough starts to smoothen, add a tbsp at a time. STOP when the dough starts to pull away from the sides of the bowl. Apparently, we can't rely on the recipe that much - we may need less or more than that of the recipe, depending on the type of flour used and the humidity at the time of preparing the dough. Continue to mix the dough until smooth and elastic - about 5 minutes. Cover with a towel and let rest for 15 minutes.

4. Grease a 13x9-inch pan. I used a 11x13-in pan, it worked just fine - if you're not really that particular about the bread's appearance. Punch down dough several times to remove all air bubbles. Press into greased pan. Using a very sharp knife, cut diagonal lines 1-1/2 inches apart, cutting completely through the dough. Repeat in opposite direction creating a diamond pattern. Cover loosely with greased plastic wrap and cloth towel. I just can't make this diamond pattern without pulling on the dough, I guess my dough was bit too sticky and needed a little bit more of flour.

5. Let rise in a warm place (80-95 degF) until light and doubled in size, about 45 minutes. For a warm place, if you have a gas oven, heat the oven to 200 degF. Close the door for 1 minute. Turn off the oven then place the rising dough inside. If you're using an electric oven, you have to leave the oven on for about a minute and a half.

6. Heat the oven to 375 degF (remember to take out the dough first!). Uncover dough. Redefine cuts by poking tip of knife into cuts until knife hits bottom of pan; do not pull knife through dough. As I've mentioned earlier, I couldn't make the diamond pattern so I had to contend with diagonal lines hehehe.

7. In a small bowl, combine parmesan cheese, basil, oregano and garlic powder; mix well. Set aside.

8. Spoon 4 tbsps of butter over cut dough. I just used 3 tbsps.

9. Bake at 375 degF for 15 minutes. Brush remaining 2 tbsps butter over bread. Sprinkle with parmesan cheese-herb mixture. Bake for an additional 10-15 minutes or until golden brown. Serve warm or cool.

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Baked Ziti

This recipe is enough for a 9x13-in pan. I only had a 8x8-in pan so I just halved the recipe.

1 lb ground beef (approximately half a kilogram)

1 cup onion, chopped

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 (32oz) jar meatless spaghetti sauce (I used 2 packs of 8.8oz Clara Ole 3-cheese spag sauce for my half-recipe)

1 cup chicken broth

1 tsp oregano

1 (16oz) package ziti pasta, cooked and drained (16 oz = 1 lb = 454 g; I used San Remo penne pasta, about 250g for my half-recipe)

2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese (I'm sure using mozzarella would have made it more delicious but I didn't have any so I just used Kraft Eden cheese and it tasted fine)

1 cup grated parmesan cheese

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degF. In a large skillet, add ground beef, onions and garlic. I added just a little bit of salt to the beef. Cook over medium-high heat stirring frequently until the beef is browned. Stir in spaghetti sauce, chicken broth and oregano. Reduce heat and simmer for 10minutes.

2. Stir in 1 cup of sauce into the cooked ziti noodles. Spoon 1/2 of the ziti mixture into a 9x13-in baking dish. Sprinkle 1-1/2 cups mozzarella cheese and 1/2 cup parmesan cheese over the top of the ziti mixture. Top with 2 cups of sauce, then add remaining ziti mixture and top that with the remaining sauce.

I find this to be a great technique to have the cheese incorporated into the flavor of your pasta dish. Placing it on the middle was a genius idea! It may be the usual for some but I just found out about it last night :P

3. Cover with aluminum foil and bake at 350 degF for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes remove from oven, uncover and sprinkle the top with the remaining mozzarella and parmesan cheese. Return to oven and bake for 10 minutes or until the cheese has melted.

I didn't need to preheat my oven because I was baking bread and I didn't follow the 350 degF temp either. I just popped in my pasta with my bread but reduced my baking time (for the pasta) from 20 minutes to only 15 minutes. Then took it out, sprinkled the cheese and baked for another 10 minutes.

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That's about it!

On the homefront, the little boy is getting more makulit each day. And he loves watching Pocoyo, Bob the Builder, the Piglet Movie, Pixar's Partly Cloudy, Dora, among others. He watches it while on his tummy, with his legs swaying in the air. AND, he chuckles at certain parts of the movie. Hehehe. Nakakagigil nga minsan kaya natatadtad sa kisses at hugs from me :P

When we leave in the morning for work, usually he's still sleeping. So we just kiss him goodbye. I can't be content with just one kiss - kasi I smell him pa. Baon ko sa office ung sweet baby smell ni Ethan :)

I'm sure I'm getting incoherent here - when we sing that Rehab song from Glee (by Amy Winehouse), he just dances to the music with his bungisngis smile. Ah, ang sarap tuloy kantahan para sumayaw nang sumayaw hehehe. They tried to make me go to rehab, but I said no, no, no...*insert chubby buttocks and arms swaying to the music here*.

His jigsaw puzzles are becoming no-brainers for him because he can solve them in less than a minute - these are wooden puzzles featuring 4 mom-baby animal pairs. He also has Joytoy puzzles with the numbers stuff. Basta wala lang sumpong, mabilis magawa. Pag may sumpong, kung anu-ano ang pinipilit - like making 6 go to the 9 spot. Kanino kaya nagmana sa kakulitan ito? Hehe.

And, we now have a parrot in the house so we have to be really really be extra careful with the words that come out of our mouth. Because the little boy can easily repeat them.

He's also learning to feed himself (usually soup) using a spoon. We also noticed that his left hand is bit more dominant than his right. No problems with that, and we don't plan to force him to be a righty if indeed he's a lefty.

Potty training, er, getting to that. But I guess he's not that ready yet. Preferring to make his potty chair a throne for his bear (King Bear daw) or Pablo (of the Backyardigans). Hehe, he'll get to that :)

Hmm, this post is getting all lengthy. I'll stop here, till my next :)

Baked Tilapia and Corn&Tomato Salad

I got to try another dish last night. The recipe came from that small book of Good Housekeeping, the one with Easy Everyday Meals - it should be available at the bookstores. The recipes were Baked Fish with Thyme and Roast Potatoes and Corn and Tomato Salad with Fresh Cilantro.

The baked fish was great, quite flavorful. And A liked the potatoes :P I loved the fresh and light taste of the salad, I may be making this quite often.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to take even a single picture of the food. Bummer, right? Maybe next time.

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Baked Fish with Thyme and Roast Potatoes

1 kg white fleshed fish like lapu-lapu or maya-maya, scaled and cleaned (I used tilapia, it's cheaper - 3 pcs for a kilo hehe)
6 sprigs fresh thyme, or 2 tsps dried thyme
1 lemon, sliced
1/2 cup butter (I divided into 6 parts, 2 parts per fish)
salt and freshly cracked black pepper
6 medium sized potatoes, quartered (I used only 4 - only 3 adults in the house)
2 tbsps olive oil

Preheat the oven to 350F.

Lay fish on a roasting pan or baking tray. Season the insides of the fish with salt and pepper. Stuff thyme, lemon slices, and half of the butter (1 part of the butter) in the fish's belly. Again, season the outside part of the fish with salt and pepper. Top fish with the rest of the butter (the other part) and some thyme.

In a small bowl, toss potatoes with olive oil, salt and pepper. Pour potatoes onto roasting pan, beside the fish.

Bake for 45 minutes or until fish is done. (In my case, since the tilapia was smaller than a 1-kg fish, it took only 25mins for the fish to be done.) Check if the potatoes are done. These may have to keep in a few minutes longer (in my case, about 50mins is ok).

Serve whole with lemon wedges on the side. Dribble pan juices onto fish before serving.

Corn and Tomato Salad with Fresh Cilantro

2 cans whole kernel corn
1/3 cup finely chopped red onion
4 fresh tomatoes, chopped
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro (I used celery, it's the least aromatic for A hehe)
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 tsps salad vinegar (I used balsamic vinegar)
Salt and pepper

Combine corn, onion, tomatoes and cilantro in a large bowl.

Toss to blend with olive oil and vinegar. Season with salt and pepper.

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Hope you have fun with these recipes because we sure did :)

Apple Cobbler and Inasal

I think I've mentioned in this blog before that I'm no domestic goddess :P but I do dabble in cooking from time to time. I usually search food blogs like those of pinoycook, realmomkitchen, and yummy and when I find something that I'd like to try (or have ingredients on hand), I cook it for my family.

Last week, I had several (about 6) red apples in the fridge that are getting all wrinkly. So I googled for a recipe that will use overripe apples and I found a basic cobbler recipe. It's quite easy - all you need is sugar, flour and butter (and of course, the fruit).

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Basic Cobbler recipe

The original recipe is for a 9x9 baking dish. I used a small loaf pan and just used 2/3 of the recipe. Here's the original one:

1-1/2 cups flour

1-1/2 cups sugar, plus a little bit more for sprinkling (I didn't need to sprinkle since the apples were quite sweet)

1-1/2 sticks unsalted butter, melted

fresh fruit, peeled and cut into chunks (I used our overripe apples which worked perfectly fine)

Combine flour and sugar. Add the butter, mixing as you go, until the mixture forms a soft dough.

Grease your baking dish then put the fruit in the dish. The recipe suggests that the amount of fruit you place should be about a 2-inch thick layer. Sprinkle with sugar, if needed.

Take about a handful of dough and flatten into disks and lay them on top of the fruit. Use all patties to fully cover the layer of fruit. Bake at 350F for about 45-50mins, until the crust is golden brown.

We found the crust a tad too sweet so next time, I make this, I'll try to lessen the sugar. But all around, the recipe was uber simple and truly foolproof!

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Another one I tried out during the weekend was Yummy's recipe for chicken inasal. I found it in their 2010 planner (an officemate has one and I just copied the recipes that I found interesting). Overall, it was good :) The chicken was malasa so their marinade really works. We just had a hard time cooking it because we couldn't get that perfect barbecue - crispy skin without charring it. Next time, we'll work on the technique :)

Yummy's Chicken Inasal

2/3 cup local white vinegar (I used Datu Puti)

1/2 cup soda (I used Sprite)

1-1/2 tbsps chopped ginger

2 tbsps calamansi juice

2 tbsps brown sugar

1 tbsp onion powder (I used finely minced onion, I forgot to buy onion powder hehe)

1/2 tbsp rock salt

1 tsp ground pepper

1 whole chicken, cut in half (I used 6 leg quarters)

For the annatto oil:

3 tbsps corn oil

1/3 cup annatto seeds (I just used slightly less than 1/4 cup because it was mainly for color)

1 tsp salt

1 tbsp butter

2 tbsps local wine vinegar (I used white vinegar because we didn't have any sukang tuba)

Mix vinegar, soda, ginger, calamansi juice, brown sugar, onion powder, salt and ground pepper in a bowl. Add the chicken pieces; rub the marinade into the chicken. Keep at room temperature for 1 hour before refrigerating. Chill overnight.

To make the annatto oil, warm oil in a saucepan and add the annatto seeds. Stir until the seeds release their color (and aroma). Strain to remove seeds. Return the oil to heat. Add salt, butter, vinegar; simmer for 2 minutes.

While grilling the chicken, baste with the annatto oil.

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The recommended cooking time is at least 20minutes. We took about 40 minutes per batch (we had a small grill which could only accommodate 3 chicken quarters each time so we had to do batch cooking).

I'm looking forward to more experiments in the kitchen. Hopefully, I'll get to blog each time. Ciao!

Reading

In preparation for the start of the construction of our house (yey!), I am currently reading the book Guide to Homeownership by Armando Ang. It's not easy...my eyes tend to go glassy from time to time especially if the author cites Articles and portions of the law.

The book is about 500pages thick, although I don't really need to read the whole book since there are chapters that touch on condominiums and townhouses.

I go on OC-overdrive on times like these when I need to prepare for something major. This Saturday, we will meet with our broker at the developer's office to discuss when we can have the house construction started, whether we can make amendments on the floor plan (at no additional cost), what the restrictions would be, etc. So I have 4 more days to browse the book and come up with my list of questions.

Aside from this book, I'm also looking up references to feng shui :P And so far, my mind is reeling with the information on the 5 elements, auspicious dates, correct areas to promote health, prosperity, etc.

In short, I am not doing so much job-based work. Much shorter, I am playing truant :P

But this is something that cannot wait *yeah yeah justify* so I really have to do this. Hopefully, I come up with my list soon. Maybe you have something to contribute? *wink*

Back to work

Happy new year to everyone...it's 2010! Can't believe we've gone through a whole decade in this new millenium. There was a time that I couldn't imagine how starting the year with "20" instead of "19" would be and now, a decade's gone already :)


We went home to Davao for Christmas. As always, I love going home. I love staying in our laid back city (although heavy traffic is not alien to our city - but still, way better than EDSA during rush hour). And no, hindi po magulo sa Davao.


The little boy played with Grandma's Christmas tree - kaya nawala na sa ayos ung lowest part ng tree - and with Grandma's butingtings. He also had his time watching Nick Jr and Cartoon Network. He played with his tito's (my cousin's) puppy and rode on my bro's old bike. We also went to Crocodile Park and he saw the small and large DewDews (read: crocodiles), birds, Simba (a large cement figure of a lion), Phant (elephant), key (monkey - actually an orangutan), and snakes.

Christmas Eve was spent exchanging gifts and videoke :) Ethan received a Mickey Mouse train from us, a train set with tracks from Grandpa and Grandma, a toy saxophone from Lollie (that's my tita) and a R/C truck from Uncle Soc. And boy, we had to find a box which can accommodate his toys since we need to check it in during our flight back. Not to mention, I had to stuff all spaces with clothes to ensure that the toys don't get jingled and jangled during the trip. Thankfully, his toys made it in one piece :)

My boys celebrated their birthday in Davao (pictures to follow, I have yet to get those from A). We had a lechon de leche (yum), a Backyardigans cake (from Red Ribbon), another cake (as a gift from Lolo July and Lola Trining), spaghetti, salad and fried chicken. A and I also ordered balloons (which were all left in Davao hehe). Kami-kami lang ang nandun so it was quite low-key, no stress for us.

Then we came back to Manila last Dec. 30 to meet the new year in Marikina. Kasama lang namin sa bahay sina Lolo at Lola :P Ethan still had gifts to open (from Tito Abet and Ninong Jojo)...both train sets - one was a Thomas and the Fire Engine train set (complete with a bridge and cave) and the other one was Emily with additional railroad tracks. Needless to say, the little boy was agog with excitement :)

In Davao (where firecrackers are banned), we had a quiet Christmas...in Marikina, relatively quiet (compared to previous years). There were several firecrackers lit a few minutes before midnight, went to a high during midnight then a few minutes after, tahimik na ang paligid. I remember when I was a kid (hindi pa banned ang firecrackers sa Davao nun), ang paputok nagsisimula na mga 11:30 pa lang. I had to check regularly kung 12MN na ba kasi andami ng paputok. Tapos peak during midnight - Judas belt, fountain, trompillo ayan sindihan na ang lahat ng yan. And it won't die down until mga 12:30am. Ngayon siguro hirap na talaga ang buhay, mahal ang paputok kaya unti na lang ang binibili :)

So, what are the plans for the year ahead?

I would really want to lose weight. And give more focus to the little boy. I'd like to allot at least about 30mins sa hapon/gabi (during weekdays) for him - to just read books, sing songs, ganyan. Sana magawa ko :P