The Best English Muffins Ever!

No we did not have English Muffins for dinner. We had them for breakfast. Dinner was Steak Pizzioli and it was okay. I liked the sauce and the roasted potatoes the best. I just should have taken the meat out a couple of minutes sooner. Hey they can't all be winners. Enough about the overcooked meat. It is breakfast I want to focus on tonight.

This recipe is from A Beautiful Mess. I made the muffins yesterday and baked them last night. They were so crisp and the nooks and crannies were perfectly defined. I did not use a muffin ring, really not a necessary piece of equipment. Instead of using the mixer to knead the dough, I did it by hand. The texture was beautiful. It reminded me of the first time I made bread. Kneading the dough is so relaxing.

From A Beautiful Mess, English Muffins-

Ingredients-
2 1/4 cups bread flour
1/2 tablespoon sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon shortening (or butter at room temperature)
1 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
1/4 cup warm water
3/4 cup milk

Method-
Combine the yeast with the warm water. I like to add just a pinch of sugar to the water before pouring in the yeast, just really get things going.
In a large mixing bowl combine the flour, sugar, and salt. Stir in the shortening, this will be a little clumpy and that's OK. Now pour in the yeast water and milk. Stir until a dough ball forms. If you are using a stand mixer and dough hook to knead the dough, this will take about 6 minutes until the dough becomes elastic like. If you knead by hand it will probably take 8-10 minutes (and a lot more muscles). Place in a lightly oiled bowl, cover and allow to rise until doubled in size (about 60-90 minutes).

Plop the dough out on a floured work surface. Yes, you must plop. Divide the dough into six equal parts. *The original recipes encourages this, although I think this could easily make eight muffins as it yields pretty big English muffins if you stick with six.  Anyway, roll each muffin into a ball. Place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and a little bit of cornmeal (or flour). Cover, and allow to rise for an additional hour.

Heat a cast iron skillet (or other oven safe pan) over medium heat. Add a teaspoon of oil. You don't want too much as our goal isn't to fry the dough, but we don't want it to stick to the pan either. Cook for 5-6 minutes on each side. You want each side to get very brown, but not burnt.

Once you've cooked each side pop the skillet in the oven at 400°F for 10-12 minutes until the english muffins are cooked through.

 

If you do not have an oven safe pan, or you don't have one large enough for all the muffins, you can remove the muffins after cooking on each side to the baking sheet (still lined with parchment paper and cornmeal) and bake on there. Either way.

These are wonderful just out of the oven the day they are made. If you have leftovers, just place the cooled muffins in a Ziplock bag and seal it up. These will easily last a few days on the counter, or up to a week in the refrigerator. 

Today I took part in a focus group at Bishop's Orchard. You know the place I buy my produce. It was interesting hearing other shopper's stories. Looking forward to seeing what changes will come about. We received a gift basket for our time. A gift card (always appreciated!), the amazing apple cider donuts, apple sauce and an apple paper weight (I think that's what it is!). It all came in a shopping basket. Guess who liked that -

Roast Chicken, the English Muffin & A New Love in My Life

Let's start at the beginning of the day. Breakfast. Remember those very large English Muffins I made last week. Well this week I made them the correct size, still came out rather large, but added Cinnamon. Wow wow wow. Want to try them? They really are easy. Click here for a life changing experience, well sort of life changing.

Now on to dinner. A Roast Chicken. A simple meal but one that I am not quick to make. Why? Fear of serving raw meat? Maybe. But I have a meat thermometer so that should not be the issue. It is because I tend to over think the roasting of the chicken. But it is quite simple. Just put some lemon and herbs into the cavity and pop it in the oven. Ta Da! Don't believe me? Well read this recipe and you too will see how simple this is.

Side dishes were Roasted Acorn Squash and Roasted Potatoes. And dinner caught Archie's attention!

Now about that new love in my life. Bread pudding. Panettone Bread Pudding to be exact. My mother never made Bread Pudding, at least not that I can remember. We received a loaf of Panettone at Christmas and I wanted to find a use for it, other then toast. I put half of the loaf in the freezer and the other half was transformed into something so wonderful. The recipe is from Epicurious. I did not have enough Vanilla, I know I could not believe it myself. But I had Brandy extract. Oh yeah. That is the way to go. It was moist and the flavors were out of this world. The recipe is suppose to be prepared in a 13"x9" pan. Way to much for the 2 of us so I cut the recipe in half and used 2 round cake pans. Perfect!

These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things

A few of my favorite things on one plate. Homemade pasta. Escarole and Beans. Sopressata. Burrata Cheese. Heaven. And I think Chris liked this dinner too. I made the pasta using my new(!!!) food processor. I am a newbie at making pasta in a processor. I used a different recipe for tonight's pasta. I found this recipe on the Food Network site. The dough seemed moister than the recipe I have been using. I have to tell you it was a lighter pasta. We could have eaten the whole pan, but we did not. And the whole idea of making the pasta in the food processor was amazing. No more egg running over the side of a wall of flour and mixing everything on the table top.

Besides homemade pasta there was the Sopresseta and Escarole and beans. A perfect combination on any dish, from pizza to pasta. I sauteed a sliced onion in some olive oil and than added the cubed Sopresseta. Next I added the chopped escarole which had been cooked in boiling water for about 5 minutes and drained. (The water the escarole was cooked in was added to the pasta water.) I seasoned everything in the saute pan with crushed red pepper, salt and pepper. Half a can of drained Cannelini beans were added as was 2 tablespoons of butter, 1/4 cup chicken broth and 1/4 white wine. After the wine cooked down. I added the cooked pasta along with a little of the pasta water. I cut the Burrata cheese into 4 sections and added it to the top of the pasta. Delicious!

And if it is the weekend I had to have baked something. 

 

Last week I jumped into baking English Muffins. This week I made Whole Wheat and Honey English Muffins. The recipe said to make 10 muffins. For some reason I did not want 10 muffins. I wanted 8. Well, we know have 8 Extra Large English Muffins. Luckily they are really good!

Pork Medallions with Wine and Herb Gravy

I found the recipe for tonight's dinner online. Pork Loin with Wine and Herb Gravy.  I am not sure how I came upon the site seasonsandsuppers.ca but if you have time you should visit it. I know I will be visiting again. Back to dinner. I had all the ingredients in the house. I worked from home today so I thought I would be able to pull this off without having to serve dinner too late. Well of course I had to work longer than usual, 45 minutes, so I had to make an change in the recipe. I cut the pork loin into medallions. This reduced the cooking time by a lot! I had dinner on the table by 6:45! And it was delicious. And using only one tenderloin, and cutting the ingredients in 1/2 there was just enough for the two of us.

This morning it was snowing. I was glad I picked today to work from home. When it snows I like to bake bread. Actually I like to bake bread all the time but on a snowy day it just seems like the right thing to do. I made English Muffins for tomorrow's breakfast. Oh they look so good!