Layered with onions, asparagus and tomatoes this was a great dish.

It is amazing how great of a dish you can make just using simple ingredients.

Asparagus Frittata

• 4 eggs
• handful of asparagus
• 1/2 medium onion
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 tomato seeded
• 1/2 parmesan cheese
• 2 tbs water
• salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Place an oven safe non-stick frying pan over medium heat.  While you pan is heating up dice up the garlic, onion and asparagus.  Also slice the tomato into 1/8 of an inch slices.  Once the pan is heated add the asparagus and cook for 2 minutes.  Then add the onion and garlic and cook for an additional 3-4 minutes.  Just until the onions turn opaque.

Cooking the veggies

While your veggies are cooking mix up your eggs.  Crack the four eggs into a bowl.  Add a pinch of salt and pepper.  Then add 2 tbs of water.  This is a little trick that I learned back in the day from watching the frugal gourmet.  By adding the water to the eggs you form steam bubbles that actually make the eggs rise and become fluffier.  I have no idea if this is true, but if the frugal gourmet said it, well it has to be true.  My other trick is to whip the eggs with chopsticks instead of a fork.  Chopsticks allow you to fold in more air, giving you a lighter and fluffier texture.

Chopsticks whip the eggs twice as good as a fork

Pour the egg mixture over the veggies and cook for 2 minutes.  Don’t fold the eggs over or try to make them into scrambled eggs.  Cook until the bottom is set.  Then place the sliced tomatoes evenly over the egg mixture.

Evenly spread out the tomatoes

Once the tomatoes are on the eggs cover the eggs and tomatoes with parmesan cheese.

I like to freshly grate the cheese over the eggs

Place the whole pan in the oven for 10-15 minutes.  The time will depend on your oven.  Once the top of the frittata is solidified and the cheese is melted it is ready to remove from the oven.

When the cheese is fully melted it is done. You don't want to cook your eggs till they are brown as they will be overdone and dry.

Flip the frittata out onto a plate to serve.  If you wish you can flip it once again to have the tomatoes showing.

The frittata flipped out onto a plate

Cut into wedges and serve with a tad bit more freshly grated parmesan on top.

As you can see the finished product is amazing. It is layered to perfection and perfectly cooked.

The overall final product was awesome.  The eggs had the perfect texture and the asparagus gave a great almost unexpected texture.  You can substitute pretty much any vegetable or even add meat to this meal.  A normal frittata is cooked partially and then the ingredients are added to the top halfway through.  Although not traditional this meal was awesome.  I recommend trying it and then making your own variation using whatever ingredients that you have on hand.  This would be awesome with spinach and ham, or broccoli chedder and bacon.  So many combinations.  Enjoy!!

Banana Bread fresh out of the oven topped with a light spread of butter.

Banana Bread - (Adapted from The Food Network)

• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 2 large eggs
• 3 ripe bananas
• 1 tablespoon milk
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup toasted walnuts, chopped
• 1/2 cup chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Butter a 9 x 5 loaf pan.

Cream the sugar and butter in a large mixing bowl or the bowl of your stand mixer until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, incorporating the eggs fully before adding the next egg.

In a small bowl, mash the bananas with a fork. When the bananas are smashed add the milk and cinnamon to the bowl.

Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt onto a piece of wax paper or parchment.

Add the banana mixture to the creamed mixture and stir until combined. Add dry ingredients, mixing lightly until the flour is absorbed.  Make sure not to over-mix the batter as the bread will turn out dense.

Gently fold in the nuts and the chocolate chips. Once again, make sure not to over-mix the batter.

Pour batter into prepared pan and bake 1 hour or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Set aside to cool on a rack for 15 minutes. Remove bread from pan, invert onto rack and cool completely before slicing.

Serve at room temperature with butter, or warm in the microwave for 15 seconds.

This was a great banana bread.

Every Wednesday I review a cookbook to help weed out the good the bad and the ugly. This week I am reviewing The Art & Soul of Baking by Cindy Mushet. I love baking. I guess it is the engineer in me that loves the precise measurements and the ability to use cool cooking tools. Honestly, the fact that the recipes are so precise and need to be that precise is comforting to me. When it comes to precise measurements and exactness, this book does not disappoint. It includes conversion tables and measurements of ingredients based on weight. I love using kitchen scales. I may be weird, but this book is awesome.

After reading the first chapter of this book, I knew that it was going to be my new favorite baking book. They discuss every basic ingredient from flour to sugar to milk. Each section has a description of the basics for the ingredients, the history, how they are made, how they interact with other ingredients, and best of all, the differences between the varying types of each ingredient. For instance, butter has coloring added to it as winter and summer butter varies in color. This is because of the types of food that cows eat during the varying seasons. During the winter cows normally eat dried grain leaving the butter pale in color. During the spring and summer cows normally eat green grass leaving the butter yellow and more appealing in flavor. So yellow coloring is added to butter to make is so that spring/summer butter can be found year round.

This book is part of the Sur La Table culinary series of books. This is awesome as there is a section on culinary equipment. This might now sound like much, but they describe each piece of culinary equipment and provide you with a maximum amount of dough/batter that can and/or should be placed in the equipment. Pages 12-13 of the book include a baking pan volume chart. This describes each type of baking pan and the maximum capacity by volume for each pan. Extremely helpful when you are trying to figure out how much bread dough to put in a 8.5 x 4.5 x 2 loaf pan. Just so you know, 6 cups.

The book is laid out nicely based on type of baked good you are trying to make. Yeast breads, layered pastries, quick breads, pies, tarts, fruit desserts, cookies, cakes, custards, souffles, and finishing techniques. In each section they list the recipes for each food and further include random “what the pro’s know” tips and Tips for success throughout the book. These include tidbits that can make or break your baked goods. For instance, the easiest way to inhibit fruit from turning your muffins blue is to use buttermilk. The acidity in buttermilk stops the color change.

I would like to point out that the book has a sole section of souffles. Souffles scare the crap out of me. Every time that I make them they fall, aren’t cooked properly or are just plain bad. This book in just 3 pages describes the process and techniques used in making the perfect souffles. After reading this section I felt as if I could go and make a perfect souffle right then. I have never read a cookbook that explains hard techniques in such a way that I immediately felt that I could make them without a problem.

Overall this book is amazing. It includes great recipes, great pictures and great information on baking. The book is a great reference for not just recipes but for conversions, cooking equipment and various other tips that are included with almost every recipe. I would recommend this book to everyone that is interested in baking. Plus it includes a great recipe for pizza dough. I love pizza.

The Art & Soul of Baking is available wherever books are sold and is available on Amazon for around $26.

The texture of the crumb topping perfectly compliments the texture of the muffin.

The Muffins are moist and have the perfect muffin texture. 

BlueBerry Muffins with Crumb Topping – (From Allrecipes.com)

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1 egg
• 1/3 cup milk
• 1 cup fresh blueberries

Crumb Topping

• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup butter, cubed
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Blueberry Muffins

The first step is to preheat oven to 400 degrees F.  Grease muffin cups or line with muffin liners. If you want to make giant muffin tops, make sure to grease the top of the muffin pan even if you use muffin liners.

Next sift 1 1/2 cups flour, 3/4 cup sugar, salt and baking powder into a bowl.

If you don't have a strainer or sifter, try putting your ingredients in a food processor and take them for a spin.

Place 1/3 cup of vegetable oil into a 1 cup measuring cup.  Then add the egg to the measuring cup.  Finally add enough milk to fill the cup.

Oil

Add Egg

Add Milk

Mix the liquid ingredients with the dry flour mixture.

The mixture is way too thick for a whisk, so try a rubber spatula.

Fold in blueberries.

Fold in Blueberrys, try not to squish them.

Fill muffin cups right to the top so that you get big muffin tops.  Normally muffin tops are not socially acceptable, but here at savoryreviews they are required.

Fill to the top, I used gigantic muffin tins so I didn't have enough batter to make it to the top.

Crumb Topping

Mix together 1/2 cup sugar, 1/3 cup flour and 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon in a bowl.

Cinnamon makes it tasty

Cut up the butter into cubes and mix into the sugary mixture.  You can use a fork or a pasty blender to crush the topping into small gravel size pieces.

Combine until it turns into small gravel/pea size pieces.

Top each muffin with the topping.  Don’t go overboard as you will end up with huge chunks of sugary goodness allover your muffins.  Ok, go overboard.  I did.

Cover the muffins

Since I used giant pans, I only made 5 muffins.  So I had a lot of topping to put on 5 muffins.  I took advantage and spread it out over the 5 muffins.  It was pretty intense and awesome.

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes in the preheated oven, or until done.  Since I used extra large muffin tins, I cooked mine almost 30 minutes.  I used the toothpick method to check for doneness.

Look at those muffin tops.

Let cool in the pan for 5-10 minutes and then remove to a cooling rack.

These muffins are amazing.

Just so that you can see the tasty goodness, I have eaten one to show you the inside.  Yeah, My job sucks, but somebody has to do it.

So moist and tender. The perfect muffin.

If you have any questions let me know.

Perfect with homemade strawberry jam

Unlike most bread dough’s you do not knead this one.  It is a wetter batter than most bread doughs.  Since it is a wet dough make sure to immediately wash all utensils and bowls that had the dough in it.  If you don’t it will be really hard to clean as the wet dough dries into cement.

English Muffin Bread

• 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 cups of flour
• 1 package of yeast or 2 1/4 tsp of yeast
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1 cup milk
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 tbs butter
• handful of cornmeal for dusting

The first step is to heat all of the wet ingredients in a pan.  Combine the water, milk, butter, salt and sugar into a sauce pan and slowly heat it.  When the butter melts it should be at the right temperature.  You can check this by touching it.  If it is slightly to moderately warm then it is perfect.

While the wet ingredients are heating up sift your flour and baking soda.  I sifted about 3 1/4 cups.  You might not need all of it, but it is easiest to sift everything at once.

I use a wire strainer but you can use a sifter. I know it is an extra step but when it comes to the final texture it makes all of the difference.

Put 2 cups of the flour mixture into a mixing bowl and add the yeast.  Stir to incorporate the ingredients.  Then while you are mixing on low speed add the wet ingredients.  It is going to be really runny.  Don’t worry.

Pour slowly as you don't want to get wet.

Slowly add more flour stopping after every 1/2 cup to check the consistency. 

If you sift the flour onto a piece of wax paper you can easily funnel it into the mixing bowl.

Once you stop the mixer, if the dough holds its shape you are at the right consistency.  Once you hit the right consistency, mix for 1  minute.  Remember when adding flour that you do not want the dough to form a ball. 

Ad you can see the dough keeps its shape after the mixing blade moves through the dough.

This is the hardest part about making dough. When do you stop adding flour? When it looks like the dough above.

While the dough is mixing, grease a standard loaf pan.  Then place a couple of tablespoons of cornmeal in a pan.  Over a sink shake the pan to get cornmeal on all sides.

I use a standard non-stick cooking spray to grease the pan.

Tap the pan on each side to evenly coat the pan with cornmeal.

Once the dough is done mixing, scrape it into the pan.  The dough is extremely sticky so it will be hard to distribute evenly.  Dust another tablespoon or two of cornmeal on the top of the dough.  Once you have it dusted you can use your fingers to evenly distribute the dough.

Cover and let rise for 45-75 minutes.  You want the dough to rise over the lip of your pan.  Since it is a wet dough, the top will not rise in the oven.  So be patient and let it rise now.

After an hour it has a nice crown.

Once the dough is fully risen place it on the center rack of 400 degree preheated oven.  Bake for 20-30 minutes.  Once the bread is browned and sounds hollow when tapped it is cooked.  Remove and let cool in the pan on a cooling rack for 10 minutes. 

The bread is down when it is golden brown and sounds hollow when tapped with a finger.

After 10 minutes remove the bread from the pan and let cool on a rack for 20-30 minutes. 

Don't remove the bread from the pan right away as it needs time to cool before moving. There are so many air pockets in the bread that it could collapse.

Once cooled slice and toast.  Serve with butter or strawberry jam.  My mother made me fresh strawberry jam.  It is delicious.  I will have to get the recipe.

Perfect with butter or jam.

The bread was light, fluffy with the perfect amount of air bubbles.  It has the same texture and taste of english muffins.

One more pick since it looks so tasty!!

Doesn't that look fabulous. Strawberry Shortcake with whipped cream.

Strawberry Shortcake (from Grandma Dot)

• 2 lbs fresh strawberries
• 2 cups flour
• 2 large eggs
• 1 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup margerine
• 1.5 tbs baking powder
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup milk

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Remove the stems from the strawberries and then quarter the strawberries.

Now using a hand chopper or pastry blender crush the strawberries till slightly chunky.  Once crushed add 1/2 cup of sugar.  If you like a bit more feel free to sweeten them up a bit more.  Once crushed and sweetened, place in the refrigerator to let the strawberries and sugar meld.

Now it is time to make the shortcake.  In a bowl add the 2 cups of flour, 1.5 tbs of baking powder, 3/4 tsp of salt and remaining 1/2 cup of sugar.  Stir to mix the dry ingredients.  Then add the 3/4 cup of margerine.  3/4 cups of margerine is 1.5 sticks.  Using a pastry blender or hand chopper mix the ingredients until the butter and flour mixture looks like pea sized pieces.

Once the butter is fully incorporated add the 2 eggs and the 1/2 cup of milk.  Mix by hand.  You do not want to work the dough too much or else it will not be fluffy.  The batter will be a bit lumpy, but that is alright.

The dough will be a bit lumpy but that is how to do it.

Scrape the dough out onto a greased or parchment lined 9 inch round or 9 inch square baking pan.  Place in the oven and bake at 375 degrees for 20-25 minutes.  Remove from the oven when a toothpick can be inserted into the center of the cake and removed cleanly.

The top is golden brown and there is a bit of cracking on the surface.

It is best to eat right away while the shortcake is warm.  Otherwise let cool and microwave for 20-30 seconds to get the cake hot before serving.   I usually cut the cake in half, ladle strawberries over the top of the first layer. Add whipped cream to the first layer.  Then add the second half of the cake and add strawberries and whipped cream again.

Layered to perfection

The shortcake is light and fluffy.  The cake is not too sweet so it balances perfectly with the sweetened strawberries.  The next time that you see that strawberries are on sale I hope you get a chance to make this.  It is awesome!!

Last week on friday I made a sour dough starter. After stirring it today I noticed it was ready to go. The first thing that came to mind was sour dough pizza. When I was in college there was a pizzaria by my house with the best sour dough pizza. After years of trying I think that I may have finally figured it out.

Once you have your starter  this crust takes only and hour or so to make.  Rather fast for a pizza crust.  The recipe makes two crusts so if you don’t need the other one you can refrigerate it for 2-3 days or it freezes very well.

Sourdough Pizza crust 

• 1/4 cup warm water
• 1/2 tsp instant yeast
• 1/4 tsp sugar
• 1 cup sourdough starter
• 1tsp salt (preferably kosher or fine sea salt)
• 3 tbs olive oil
• 3-4 cups bread flour
• semolina or cornmeal for dusting

Sauce

• 14-16oz can of diced tomatoes
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 tsp basil
• salt and pepper to taste
• optional – 1 tsp red pepper flake

First mix the water, instant yeast and sugar into a bowl.  Wait till bubbly, 5-10 minutes.

Next add the starter, salt, olive oil, yeast mixture and 2 cups of flour into a mixing bowl or the bowl of your stand mixer.  Then mix until incorporated using a spatula or a dough hook.

The dough is just starting to pull from the sides and form a ball.

Now slowly add flour a 1/4 cup at a time until the mixture is fully in a ball and not too sticky.  If you are using your mixer you will see the dough form a single ball and not stick to the edges.  Due to the humidity and temperature where you are located this could take as little at 2-3/4 cups and as much as 4 cups of flour.  When I made the dough it took roughly 3-1/4 cups of flour.

Once the dough forms a ball dust a surface with flour and kneed it for 2-3 minutes.  If you don’t have a mixer, you may want to incorporate a tad bit more flour during the kneeding stage.

Now divide the dough into two equal portions and either let both rise to form two pizzas or refrigerate one or both.  If you refrigerate both and let them rest they will develop a stronger sour dough flavor.

Now cover the dough with a towel and let rise for 30-60 minutes.  It will rise but not quite double.  Once risen, form the pizza into 12-16 inch circles. 

Place the pizza on a peel or a upside down cookie sheet if you are using a pizza stone or place on a pizza pan.  Now lightly cover with sauce and your favorite toppings.  I was short on toppings so I used green peppers, green onions and mozzarella cheese.

Topped with Cheese

Topped with Green Peppers and Onions

 Bake at the highest temperature that your oven will go.  Most home ovens will go somewhere between  500-550 degrees.  Mine would go as high as 550.  I then baked it on a pizza stone for 12-14 minutes.  When you see the cheese start to brown you know your pizza is done.

Remove from the oven, cut, and enjoy.

Delicious

I hope you try this one.  Sourdough pizza is amazing and quite possibly the best pizza around.  If you need a sourdough starter click here for my post on making sourdough starters.

I have been on a quest for the best chocolate chip cookies for a while.  After a while I have figured out the ingredients needed to make a really good cookie.  You need to use both butter and shortening.  If you use all butter your cookies come out flat and crunchy.  If you use all shortening your cookies come out fluffly but don’t spread out.  A perfect balance of the two gives you a light and fluffy cookie that is not too thick and not too thin.

Chocolate Chip Cookies – (Adapted from The Worlds Best Chocolate Chip Cookies from Chef2Chef.com)

•  3/4 Cup Granulated Sugar
• 1 Cup Brown Sugar
• 1/2 Cup Butter
• 1/2 Cup Shortening
• 1.5 Tbs Vanilla – 1 Tbs if you are using mexican vanilla (it has a stronger flavor)
• 2 Eggs
• 3 Cups Bread Flour
• 3/4 tsp Baking Soda
• 3/4 tsp Salt – (Preferably Kosher or Fine Sea Salt)
• 1 Bag of Chocolate Chips

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Side Note – I just want to take a minute to let you know that if you have a kitchen aid mixer you should get a beater blade.  The original blade that comes with the mixer works great but requires that you scrape the edges of the bowl so that everything is incorporated.  The beater blade has silicone scrapers on the edge of the blade that scrape the edges and make it so that you do not need this step.

Back to cooking.  Add room temperature butter, shortening, sugar and brown sugar to your bowl.  Mix at medium speed creaming the butter and sugar. 

Now add the eggs slightly beaten and the vanilla.  Vanilla is a compliment to chocolate, so by adding the vanilla you are going to enhance the chocolate flavor.  Who doesn’t want more chocolately chocolate.  I know I do!

While that is mixing sift the flour and baking soda onto a piece of wax paper or parchment.  This step can be skipped but if you want the perfect textured cookies, I recommend that you sift your flour.  Then once your flour is sifted you can use the wax paper or parchment as a funnel to get the ingredients in the bowl.  This makes less of a mess when incorporating flour.  Otherwise you might end up looking like casper the friendly ghost. 

I used a strainer to sift the flour. It works great. No need to buy expensive equipment.

The wax paper makes pouring the flour into the mixer easy.

Mix until the flour is incorporated.  Then fold the chocolate chips in with your favorite wooden spoon or spatula.

Now portion the cookies out onto a baking sheet covered in parchment or a silpat.  I use an ice cream scoop to portion out the cookies.  I have found that I could get six cookies per sheet.

Using an ice cream scoop makes sure that all of the cookies are the same size.

The silpat is reusable and thus saves money in the long run.

Bake the cookies at 350 degrees for 12-14 minutes.  Remember to take them out when they get stiff.  If the cookies look done they are probably over done.  That is one of the biggest mistakes most cooks make.  An overdone cookie is a crime.

When the cookies are done, remove them from the oven and let them cool on a wire rack. 

It is really simple, but takes a week to get started.

Sour Dough Starter – (From the Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book)

• 1 package active dry yeast
• 2.5 cups warm water
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon honey

Dissolve the yeast in a 1/2 cup of the warm water

Then stir the flour, honey and remaining water in another bowl.

Mix till the starter is smooth.  Then cover with a cheesecloth.  Let stand at room temperature for 5-10 days or until the mixture stops bubbling, remember to stir 2-3 times a day. 

After that time move to the refrigerator and use within 10 days.  If you fail to use the mixture replenish with 1 teaspoon of honey every 10 days.  If you keep on replenishing it, it will keep forever.  The older the starter, the more sour the taste, the better the bread.

Check back next week for sour dough bread, pancakes and even pizza.

As you can see the buns come out nice and golden brown. Hot Dog Buns – (from allrecipes.com)

• 1 cup milk
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/4 cup butter
• 4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 (.25 ounce) package instant yeast
• 2 tablespoons white sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 egg

In a saucepan, heat milk, water and butter until very warm, approximately 120 degrees F (50 degrees C).

Then in the bowl of your mixer (with a dough hook), mix together 1 3/4 cup flour, yeast, sugar and salt.

Mix milk mixture into flour mixture, and then mix in egg. Stir in the remaining flour, 1/2 cup at a time, beating well after each addition. When the dough has pulled together, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface, and knead until smooth and elastic, about 8 minutes.

Divide dough into 16 equal pieces. Shape each piece into a 6×4 inch rectangle. Starting with the longer side, roll up tightly, and pinch edges and roll ends over to seal.

Place on a greased baking sheet, or on parchment/silpat.  Cover, and let rise for 50 to 60 minutes or until they are just under the size that you would like the final rolls to be. I like to put my dough in the oven and then place a pan of hot water at the base of the oven.  This way you get a controlled temperature that also has moisture.  I find that bread dough rises better this way. 

Bake at 400 degrees F for 10 to 12 minutes, or until golden brown.

The buns were very tasty.  Although, I was rushed for time and only let them rise for 30 minutes.  I found out the hard way that they do not get that much bigger when baked.  The final rolls were slightly undersized and needed another 15-20 minutes to rise before I baked them.  This recipe produced some of the best rolls that I have eaten. 

The tip to getting them to come out to the perfect size is to let them rise to just under the size that you would like them to be.  Let me know what you think.