Everyone Eats

Had a conversation a couple weeks ago with a friend when the topic turned to carmelizing onions, and how one can tell if the onions are carmelized. Well, here's a tutorial to get you started.

I first carmelized onions when I was making French onion soup. But now I carmelize them to use in various crockpot recipes, as a topping for homemade pizza, soups, added to mashed potatoes, or used to make various inventive dips or cracker toppings.

There are a multitude of ways to carmelize onions. Like most recipes, once you learn the basic process, you can make it your own.

Don't be afraid of this recipe. If you use the "low and slow" technique when cooking, there is no way you can screw this up.

First, select your onions. Add dimension to your onions by choosing two large onions of different varieties. I usually choose a red and a yellow. You don't need the sweet onion variety, but it will work just fine if you prefer those.

To avoid "crying" keep your onions in the refrigerator (where they store best anyway) until the very last possible minute. When you cut the onions, you will want to try and cut the slices thinly and as uniformly in size as possible. I usually half the onion, peel and remove the tops, and then start by putting the cut side down on the cutting board. I then half the half of the onion (so now it's quartered) and begin by thinly slicing downward. Repeat this process until your onion is sliced.

After both your onions are sliced, put the onion into a large frying pan. Don't be worry if your pan is now filled to the brim. The onions will cook down considerably. Begin by adding about a tablespoon of unsalted butter (or a tablespoon of olive oil, if you prefer). The butter will create better browning and flavor on the onions. Turn the stove on medium heat.

You will want to stir every five minutes or so until the onions are translucent. But in the meantime, you can add various flavorings of your choice. If I'm making French onion soup, I add worcestershire sauce and a bit of red wine. You may also want to add minced garlic to the mix if it fits your needs.

So continue stirring until 1) The onions are completely cooked AND 2) The bottom of the pan is dry. This means all the liquid that cooked out of the onions or added in the form of red wine, butter or worcestershire, has evaporated. If the pan is dry, your carmelization will work much better.

Once you have met both those requirements, turn your stove down to low (or about 10:30 or 11 O'clock on the stove dial) and cover the pan tightly with a lid or aluminum foil. Now, set your stove timer for 1 hour. After 30 minutes, you can stir the onions around a bit. But avoid checking them every 5 minutes... it is the steady and low heat that will carmelize the onions.

At 45 minutes you can check them - feel free to taste. If you taste a bit of sweetness in the onions, they're carmelized. If they aren't sweet, or not sweet enough for you, leave them for the full hour.

Like I said, stoves and settings do vary, but you know they're done when they get a bit sweet. Gosh how I love melty sweet carmelized onions! Tonight I ended up adding carmelized onions to my barbecue beef stew. The lentils and veggies add lots of fiber. You can serve over rice or with crackers. Delish!

Barbecue beef stew:
1 19 oz can of diced tomatoes (liquid too!)
1 can of beef broth
1.5 pounds of beef stew meat
2 large carrots, roughly chopped
2 medium potatoes, roughly chopped
3/4 cup of green lentils (or other lentils or beans of your choice)
1/4 cup of your favorite barbecue sauce
8 roughly chopped garlic cloves
2 Tbsp. worcestershire sauce
3/4 tsp. paprika
1 tsp. ground black pepper
2 bay leaves
Simmer in a crockpot for 8-10 hours. Stir in 1/2-3/4 cup of carmelized onions near the middle of the cooking time. Just before serving, mix 1/4 cup of flour into 1/2 cup of water until smooth. Then add the flour water mixture to the crockpot and stir quickly. It's done!

Thanks to my friend Jody Ruland for getting my butt in gear with the pizza crust recipe!!! I am wondering why I haven't made my own crust all along...

In 1 cup of warm water, dissolve 1 Tablespoon of white sugar. Sprinkle on 2 teaspoons of active dry yeast. Let it sit for about 10 minutes, until tiny bubbles start forming on the surface. In a separate bowl, mix gently 1 tsp. of salt, 1 cup of whole wheat flour, and 2 cups of all-purpose flour. (You could also use 3 cups of all-purpose flour if you don't like the texture of whole wheat flour.)

Pour the dry mix into the water and yeast mixture, and add 3 Tablespoons of olive oil to everything. Mix with a spoon for about 1 minute until fully incorporated. Dump dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead until it forms a solid, smooth ball. This takes about 5 minutes, or even less. In a lightly-oiled bowl, place the ball of dough. Turn it a couple times to make sure the oil coats all sides (this keeps it from drying out). Let it raise in a warm location (maybe above a pre-heating oven) for about an hour, maybe an hour and 15 minutes.

Your dough is ready to use. If you half the dough mixture, it makes approximately two 14" pizza crusts. If you cut it into four chunks, it will make four personal pan size pizzas (This is great if you let everyone choose their own toppings). Immediately after cutting the dough apart, make sure to roll the chunks into balls so that when you want to roll out the dough the edges turn out smoother. It wouldn't hurt to lightly coat each ball in olive oil again.

After sectioning the dough off, you can keep it in the refrigerator for a couple days or in the freezer for longer. Just wrap them securely.

I decided to try out my pie crust rolling bags to roll out the pizza crust. It worked very well - I floured the inside of the bag and rolled. It kept the crust clean and my rolling pin clean, too. I rolled to about 1/4 inch thick, which gave me about a 10" personal pan sized crust. I recommend investing in the pie crust bags (which are circular zippered-bags designed to give you the perfect pie crust) if you're going to make a habit of homemade pizza crust.

To bake, preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Brush your pan of choice (a cookie sheet fits two personal pan sizes nicely) lightly with olive oil. Next, place the dough on the pan. I would encourage you to brush the edges generously with olive oil (try a mix of olive oil and roasted garlic, mmmmm) so they get golden brown.

Now place your sauce of choice on the crust - my personal favorite is a smooth blend of fresh parsley, olive oil, fresh garlic cloves, a tad of hot red pepper flakes, and a splash of balsamic vinegar. Don't forget to spread it close to the edges.

Top with veggies and meat of your choice - make sure the meat is pre-cooked. Now sprinkle a bit of cheese. I recommend a flavorful, pungent cheese like extra sharp cheddar or parmesan. You will use less cheese to achieve a high level of flavor.

I also sprinkle on the edges a bit of garlic salt for a flavorful crust.

I usually start off with a bake time of 20 minutes for the minis, but keep an eye on it!! When the cheese is melted and browing, it should be done. You want to also make sure the crust is cooked through, by lifting up the pizza a bit and testing the bottom to check for no doughiness.

Here's one to keep you warm this winter. Recently we ended up buying some chicken breast meat that was less than tender, and I decided to use it in a crockpot recipe to ensure it was fully tenderized at a low, slow heat. You could easily start this in the morning and leave it all day long cooking on low.

It's also a great way to get into asian cooking that involves some ingredients not generally found in American pantries. Take a drive to your favorite asian food market - Long Cheng market on Bellinger Street in Eau Claire is my personal favorite.

Fish sauce has a strange smell on its own and I don't encourage you to deliberately taste it. However, when paired with curries, it lends a lovely savory flavor.

Shrimp paste is another ingredient I don't encourage you to try - or even catch a whiff of - on its own. It smells like fish food. But it definitely will add the authentic flavor you need in this dish. Of all the ingredients, you can omit this one to still have you dish turn out. However, for a couple bucks you can pick up a container and you will want to add this to your curries from now on.

Coconut milk is not completely foreign to most people. It's sometimes found in desserts. Make sure the kind you buy is not "lite" or the curry won't turn out right. Also, don't buy cream of coconut. It's a bit too rich for this dish.

Igredients:
1.5 pounds raw, washed and diced chicken breast meat
1.5 pounds potatoes (either peeled or unpeeled, your preference) washed and cubed into medium size pieces
2 large peppers (red or green) cut into 2-3 inch long strips
2 Tbsp. fish sauce
2 Tbsp. brown sugar
1 Tbsp. shrimp paste
1 (14 ounce) can of Swanson's chicken broth
1 (13 ounce) can of coconut milk (not the lite version, please)
1/2 of a small to medium onion, diced or food processed (Add atleast 2 Tbsp. of onion powder if you really hate onions)
8-10 garlic cloves, peeled and diced (or food processed)
2 tsp. your favorite curry powder
red pepper flakes to taste (near the very end)

Well, go ahead, combine everything into the crockpot. Give it a few gentle stirs until everything is combined roughly. Set it on low. Simmer for 6-8 hours, or a minimum of 4. Add your red pepper flakes at the end if you want to add additional heat. Oh, and serve over your favorite cooked rice. To get rice cooking tips, check HERE.

Well, there are a couple variations of the previous recipe that I can recommend so far.

Check out the closeup of the olive loaf I posted above. Gorgeous!

Roasted garlic and kalamata loaf
Ingredients:
3 cups of regular bread flour (probably the best way to learn is to start with your favorite brand of standard bread flour)
1/4 tsp. instant yeast OR 3/4 tsp. active dry yeast
1 1/2 cups of cool water (you'll probably need more)
3/4 of a 13-ounce (the bigger jars) jar of kalamata olives
8-12 cloves fresh garlic

Notice the salt has been omitted this time around. There's enough in the olives.

I peel the cloves and put them in a food processor to chop roughly. You could roughly chop them by hand, though, especially if you want larger chunks (yum!). Add them to the dry ingredients.

With the olives, drain them and then split them by hand to make sure there are no pits. I found one in mine. While you're at it, dice them into small bits. It works better to do it by hand because then you don't have the purple coloring leaking into the batter. (I put them in the food processor to start with and the edges got all raggedy, and the dough turned a slight gray color. No biggie, though.) Now add the chopped olives to the dry mix.

Lastly, you'll add water and proceed with the recipe as normal.

Toasted steel cut oats & roasted garlic loaf

Ingredients:
2 1/4 cups of regular bread flour (probably the best way to learn is to start with your favorite brand of standard bread flour)
3/4 cups whole wheat flour
1/4 tsp. instant yeast OR 3/4 tsp. active dry yeast
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 cup steel cut oats, toasted
8-12 cloves fresh garlic
1 1/2 cups of cool water (you'll probably need more)

For this version, you'll want to toast the steel cut oats in a dry pan on the stove before adding it to the dry mix. It adds a warm roasted depth of flavor to the final bread.

If you've never toasted nuts or grains, it's easy. Simply put as much in a dry pan to cover the bottom in a single layer. Set your stove to medium low. Don't crank the heat to make it hurry up; you'll end up with burnt grains. You'll first see, then hear the little grains of oats starting to 'pop' in the pan. Once this starts, start vigorously stirring the grains with spoon and shaking the pan around. You'll notice them starting to darken, and once each grain has a bit of "toast" on them, they're done.

Never having toasted oats before this, I wasn't aware of the somewhat unpleasant smell it gives off. (Not like the delicious smell from almonds) So, just know that the final product is worth the weird smell.

NOW when I make this bread again, I am going to soak my toasted oats overnight to prevent them from hogging all the water in the bread mixture. I would probably soak 1/2 cup of the toasted oats in 1 cup of water, and drain off any excess that happened to be leftover in the morning. Then, I'd use them in this recipe as usual.

Again, I peel and process my garlic cloves in the food processor, but you can roughly chop them. If you want to find chunks in the bread, just cut them in quarters. If you want it to be more of an overall flavor, process them more finely.

Make sure to give all the dry ingredients a good stir before adding the water. You'll probably need more water for this recipe than 1 1/2 cups listed, especially if you don't presoak the grains. In fact, as time goes on and the dry grains soak up lots of water like mini-sponges and you notice your dough looking uber-lumpy, you can still add more water to the mix to smooth it out. It doesn't like to incorporate immediately, but give it a few jabs to get the water soaking in and as long as it has about 6 hours to go on the dough, you'll be fine.

This loaf was AMAZING as bread for turkey sandwiches. We simply topped the meat with cracked black pepper, laid down some fresh spinach, and slathered some mayo on the bread. WOW!!!

For those of you who love artisan bread (you know, the kind with the amazing airy texture and crunchy crust) please keep reading. For those of you who don't, stop here.

If you're still reading, and not really interested in making bread because you are trying to cut carbs, I have some thoughts on that. I'm not going to be overly-complicated about it, but I believe anything you can homemake, is going to be healthier for you than a product that's prepackaged and sold on a shelf. There's lots of salt, sugar and chemicals and preservatives and things that can stifle your metabolism. And foods like potato chips and crackers have it too. It's just a fact.

But, if you're like me, you like flavorful bread for a sandwich, or with a good bowl of soup. And instead of buying it, I'm going to be making it as often as I can because this technique is amazing.

I know some of you still aren't going to be eating a lot of bread, and this is good. But be prepared to enjoy it when you do make some of this bread.

My first loaf
The "no-knead bread" craze began in 2006 when Jim Lahey shared his recipe with the New York Times. My personal craze began in November of 2010 when I was inspired for this particular recipe by Miss Becky Pronschinske of Fountain City, who touted her own recipe for olive bread on Facebook one day. Inspired by her description of olive bread, I hunted for ideas to create my own and decided to try this no-knead bread with olives and garlic cloves.

That first loaf, an olive and garlic combo, turned out better than I could have dreamed. I've posted a picture of it along with the olive oil and parmesan we used to garnish the slices. (Don't fail to notice the gorgeous cutting board gifted to me by my generous friends Jody and Troy Ruland. It's been getting a lot of use lately :-)

For those who want to get the hang of the basic loaf before getting creative, I recommend making the basic recipe to start out with. You'll learn a lot that will eventually have you making creative additions to the dough and have loaves that turn out perfect every time.

First, a bit of math

You need to do a bit of math before beginning. When you begin the recipe, you need to calculate and make sure you can be around 18 hours from then (to do a light knead and mix), and 20 hours from then (to bake). Your bread will be done about 21 hours from the time you pour in the water. To have the timing work out just right, I sometimes get the dry ingredients ready to go, then tell my husband what time to add the water. (I showed him how moist the dough should look, and has been doing a great job.)

So, if I want to have bread for supper, say 6 p.m. on Tuesday, start the mix at about 9 pm on Monday, and make sure you're around at about 3 pm to get the final steps going. This is not set in stone - if you show up at home around 4 pm to work with the bread, it's not going to ruin the recipe.

Choose a baking dish

Ideally, use a cast iron pot, a Dutch oven or those fancy le creuset enameled pots. However, I have none of those so you can also use a stainless steel pot, glass casserole dishes, or a turkey roaster (I used the size that accomodates about a 10-pound turkey).

My favorite was the turkey roaster because of the shape it made the bread (ovalish) and because it was lower on the sides and that just made it easier to get the dough in and get the bread out. If you use enough cornmeal you won't need to oil the pan, but I guess you could. Avoid non-stick and aluminum pans.

Another thing I want to try is splitting the batch into two and making two separate loaves in small round glass casserole dishes. I'll bet that would work great, too.

The recipe: Basic no-knead bread

Ingredients:
3 cups of regular bread flour (probably the best way to learn is to start with your favorite brand of standard bread flour)
1/4 tsp. instant yeast OR 3/4 tsp. active dry yeast
1 tsp. salt (sea salt, if you like)
1 1/2 cups of cool water (or more, which you'll likely need)

Gently blend the dry ingredients in a large plastic bowl. Dump the water in. Stir gently with a spoon. The dough should look more like pancake batter sprawling in a bowl than a ball of dough, if that makes sense. If you decide it's not sprawling enough after an hour or so, add more water. You aren't going to ruin this bread by adding water in small amounts.

Cover with a paper towel or cloth towel, and sit in a place in your home that's about 70 degrees. If you peek at the mixture, you should notice some bubbling going on the surface of the dough. It should creep around the bowl if you tilt it, while some should still stick to the sides. If it doesn't - you need to add more water. I have found I always need to add more water to these recipes. I'm not sure why. I have added almost a cup more than what's called for to some of them.

Eighteen hours from the time you added water, you'll begin this next step. Scrape the dough onto a clean, GENEROUSLY cornmealed area of your countertop. (You can use flour, but I greatly prefer cornmeal due to the texture it lends.) Make sure to clear yourself a large enough area to do this - I used a 2' by 18 inch piece of parchment paper to cover my space and my dough, which was pretty moist, almost overflowed the short way. The dough sort of reminds one of "the blob."

Now, having your cornmeal ready, you're going to lift the edges of the "blob" and scoop them onto the top, carefully tossing cornmeal under the edges so nothing sticks. Make sure to use lots of cornmeal! You will need to throw some down every single time you scoop some to the top of the blob, otherwise the wet dough will stick and leave you with a mess. Not a ruined bread, mind you, just a mess of sorts.

I like to use a sturdy silicone spatula for scraping the bowl and then use it to lift areas of the dough and scoop it up onto itself.

So, scoop and lift the dough edges 5 or 6 times, then leave ball of dough on the parchment paper and move the whole arrangement back to a clean corner to rise for another 2 hours. At about an hour and 45 minutes, preheat your oven to 450 degrees so it's ready to go.

Toss some cornmeal down in the bottom of your selected pan. The dough will probably have swelled some more. Sprinkle the surfaces exposed (and the sides) with cornmeal. Just seconds before putting the pan in the oven, gently flip your parchment paper over so the bread dough flops into the pan. generously sprinkle any areas that aren't covered with cornmeal. The dough with sprawl a bit, but it'll be fine.

Put a cover on the pan (or aluminum foil) and bake for 30 minutes at 450 degrees. Remove the foil or cover, and bake for an additional 20 minutes to brown the top.

Using protective silicone gloves, you'll want to get the bread out of the pan as soon as possible. Don't burn yourself! If you did a good job (corn)flouring it will slide right out.

Cool. Slice with a serrated knife. Your first experience with no-knead bread ends in bliss...

This is one of my favorite recipes for this time of year. I normally roast an entire head of garlic, then use some in this recipe as well as just spreading it on warm bread and devouring it.

Truly, it can be used as as dressing (with a tad of balsamic vinegar and honey added) or just a topper for vegetables in general, or for dipping crackers. No matter how you use it, it won't last long.

Make lots of this while red and yellow sweet peppers are in season!

Sweet pepper relish
2 large sweet peppers, yellow or red, cleaned and roughly chopped
6-8 cloves of raw garlic
about 1 cup of cleaned, destemmed fresh parsley
olive oil
1 tsp. white sugar (optional)
1/4 tsp. red pepper flakes (optional)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Lay the cloves of garlic, preferably unpeeled, in the center of a square of aluminum foil. Drizzle with olive oil. Pull all the edges of the foil up over the garlic and squeeze it at the top, creating a sealed "packet". Place in oven for 40 minutes. Remove and cool.

In a small food processor, combine the garlic cloves (they should peel easily after being roasted) parsley, about 1/4 cup of olive oil and 1/3 of the pepper pieces. Pulse until smooth. Dump mixture into a separate container. Then, put the remaining pepper pieces into the processor and just chop until the pieces are smaller, but it's not liquified.

Stir in a few red pepper flakes to give it a kick. If the peppers aren't homegrown, you might also want to add a bit of sugar to sweeten it up.

Use as a topping for raw or steamed vegetables, or as a dip. Add more olive oil to taste. Salt optional.

Alright folks, I normally don't do this. But I'm going to throw in a free advertising plug for those of you who have been *waiting* to stock up on some of the foods I mention in my blog.

Maybe you've scoped out the bulk food bins at a local grocery store, but were a bit put off by the prices posted. Now's your chance to get stocked up on some of these items for absolutely the best deal possible.

Through Friday, Jan. 8, Gordy's locations in Chippewa Falls (downtown and Lake Wissota) as well as the two locations in Eau Claire, are offering 20% off of organic food. Pretty much, anything in their specialty/health food aisle. WOWZA!

Especially with the discount, don't let the prices per pound scare you off. You'd be surprised how much prepared food volume you end up with in a single pound of dried grain.

Some of my favorite things and how I like to use them:
Chickpeas - Making the Mediterranean garlic/oil/parsley/lemon dip, hummus. As of late, I've been roasting the chickpeas whole and also pureeing them into soups.
Rice - With some roasted garlic, salt and olive oil as a simple side dish. Or in soup to add bulk.
Wild rice - Stir in a bit of butter, splash of cream and salt for a savory treat.
Steel cut oats - Soak overnight in your favorite breakfast liquid (soy milk, almond milk, chocolate almond milk or regular milk) with dried fruit for an amazing, chewy and zero-effort breakfast. If you can pour milk on cereal, you can do this one.
Cracked wheat - Try your hand at making my sundried tomato tabouli, or simply cook some up in place of couscous for an FAST, awesome and creative side dish.
Wheatberries - chewy and luscious, I add these to green salads for some added bulk and a ton of whole grain goodness. Cook a bunch and freeze them, for a zero-effort quick addition to tonight's dinner.
Barley - I recently discovered that barley is one of my favorite additions to soup. It really lends a creamy, chewy texture and makes any soup eat like a meal.
Oriental rice crackers - I just love these. I remember eating them as a child and still delight in the sweet-savory crunchiness these offer. You haven't tried them? Why wait.

Those are just a few of my favorites. You'll also find beans, flour, chocolate, dried fruits (in little bags next to the bulk bins) and nuts.

I picked up some other things at a great price, too. For $25 (approx $34 value) I got: A container of organic miso, half a grocery bag full of grains/dried food, a quart of Stonyfield Farms organic yogurt, a box of Almond Crisp crackers, rice cakes (tamari and seaweed, my fave), and two small bags of oriental rice crackers.

If you've been waiting to try some of these things, now's the perfect opportunity. No more excuses!