Friday Night food Fare

From a recent Friday night

maybe what you would get in a pub

Home brew beer, fresh salsa, cheese and hand rolled corn chips.

TGIF

 

herb flatbead

Catching up on posting, lots of pictures in iPhoto….

the love of bread with herbs from the garden………Flat bread means bread NOW !

 

Rosemary, Thyme and Oregano….

One batch of dough and herbs…..

Double batch of dough divided 24 times…..

Massage 8 dough sections with oregano and form into balls…

Roll into flats…..

a hot griddle….

Now with rosemary…..

I was in the process of cleaning the drip pans from the stove, they were soaking to remove accumulation of crud etc.

a bit labor intensive, now the thyme…. the last 8….

dual burner cast iron griddle power…

work in the herbs…

getting all puffed up….

 

cooling….. half the batch stashed away so they all don’t disappear at once…

Malted barley sour dough cranberry pancakes

Grind a small amount of malted barley ( used for brewing beer). Add to flour, about 1/2 cup of all purpose flour.
(I had a small amount of smoked Wyermanns malted barley ,and ran it through the finest setting on the coffee grinder, not spent grain but raw malted barley grains )

Round out the dry ingredients with sea salt, raw sugar, and baking powder, 1 teaspoon baking powder, the other ingredients by preference

Wet ingredients include :1 egg, oil, and sour dough starter. The amount of starter gaged by the thickness of the batter.

Boil some cranberries approximately 1cup, in a small amount of water, some will pop

Prepare a griddle or frypan, mix up dry and wet ingredients, add cranberries.

Cook and serve.

The sour dough starter and baking powder gives the flour and ground grains in the pancakes lightness so they aren’t heavy. Good flavor with the tartness of the cranberries. Even though a small batch of pancakes they are filling.

flatbread revisited

Flatbread is versatile. it can be more adaptable than a slice of a loaf bread since it call be more readily rolled and wrapped around it’s content.

 

A standard bread dough recipe (for two loaves). After one rise divided into 16 portions.

The dough is so workable that a bit of oil is all that is needed on the counter top and rolling pin.

 

Usually right after rolling, I cook them. This time I left them to rise under kitchen towels for a more thicker softer  bread.

  

Instead of baking the flats, I like to cook them on a cast iron griddle, it’s faster and you don’t have to shuttle them in and out of the oven due to their quick cooking time.

   

Extra points and flavor if you have seeds, this time, some sesame, some poppy, and some without.

The high heat of the griddle produces a toasted, mottled effect on the air pockets that form when the dough cooks on the griddle.

With a supply of flatbread, just about any filling/ingredient will suffice for a quick meal.

Crumpets

When is an English Muffin NOT an English muffin? Properly call it a Crumpet !

Today’s cooking assignment: Crumpets, I’ll leave the tea selection up to you but the theme here is Afternoon Tea and Crumpets. (I wonder why ? )

Me, I had morning coffee and wanted something fresh in the line of bread dough etc. After the caffeine kicked in it was griddle cakes  inspired by Betty Crocker International Cookbook recipe “Crumpets” (page 280,1980 General Mills) referred to also as “Pikelets”.

Get out the griddle, or cast iron fry pan.

Dissolve yeast with warm water in a large bowl,

let sit a couple of minutes till bubbly.

Add sugar, salt, flour, scalded milk, then cooled, and  butter.

  also 2 eggs,mix all to make a yeasty batter.

Let the batter sit till it doubles and is frothy. 

now, fire up the griddle with a ring, use can use the old tuna can trick, I have a hamburger ring that I use.

Spoon in the batter to the ring (buttered) over medium heat.

once they set, remove ring, cook and flip till done

you can gently pull them apart, if you like, and eat them with jam or jelly or plain butter, cream etc.. I had some Blackberry Chipotle Jam  for a bit of a POP!

Now I’ll leave the Tea selection up to you (and your additive from the Royal Flask). Don’t forget to raise your pinky when you hoist your teacup.

Tweet and/or Like some of your British friends. Wish them well.

And that’s bloody well good!

tea, courtesy of JLM