The Soap Life

January 15, 2010

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Homemade Bread

OK this bread is perfect for bread and butter. It is my favorite right now. It’s super cheap and crazy easy. My neighbor has this book and gave me the recipe. The ingredients are 13 cups unbleached flour, 3 tbsp yeast, 3 tbsp kosher salt (never ever add table salt to anything you want to eat), and 6 cups warm water.

All you have to do is add the yeast to the warm water. let it proof for like 3 minutes. Mix the flour together with the salt. At this point I add about a 1/4 cup granulated garlic (not garlic salt) to the flour. Next you simply mix the water into the flour. Hand knead it until it forms a dough. This normally takes me about 2-3 minutes. Form into a ball, and sprinkle a little flour around dough. Cover dough ball with tea towel in large bowl.

After 3 hours, you’re ready to cook it. You don’t have to punch it down, or knead it more, or let it rise 20 times or anything. Seriously, I have cooked it about 1.5 hours after I mixed it. It came out perfect.

Ok, to cook it. Pre-heat oven to 450 with either pizza stone, or unglazed quarry tile (you can get one at any tile store). While your oven is preheating form about 1/4 of the dough ball into a long loaf. About 3 inches in diameter. Put a little flour around loaf so it doesn’t stick, and a little yellow cornmeal on the bottom. Now, you simply put the loaf on the pizza stone. Check it at 17 minutes.. if it’s light brown then take it out. Mine usually takes 23 minutes. The rest of the dough can be stored in your fridge for about a week.

A couple of variations.

(1st) I flatten out like a square pizza. Add about 1/2 cup of sun-dried tomatoes, 1 cup parmesan cheese, and 1/2 cup kalamata olives. Roll up into a loaf. Seal all cracks by pinching the dough together. Brush top with the olive oil from the sun-dried tomato jar. top with about a cup of asiago cheese. Cook the same way as other loaf.

(2nd) Put some seasonings on your countertop… I use Parmesan cheese (here is the ONLY place I recommend dry), granulated garlic, kosher salt, chopped fresh parsley, black pepper, savory seasonings (unsalted). Roll your normal loaf completely around in seasonings until the entire loaf is coated in seasoning. Use a vegetable peeler to peel fresh parmesan. Lay the parmesan peels over the top of the loaf and bake as normal.

I have done more to the bread like making baguettes and things with great results. I’ve even used this bread for pizza dough and cinnamon rolls. Its great. Let me know what you think.

January 15, 2010

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Peach Iced tea

This is a great drink for the summer. Or anytime you want that really good drink thats not a coke or water.
Iced Tea. About 1/4 sweet. What that means is if you were to make sweet Iced tea, you add about 1/4 of the sugar or honey.
Add ice to a glass. Fill glass 2/3 way with tea. Fill rest of glass with Peach nectar. Available at most grocery stores. In health food isle usually.
Thats it! One of my favorite drinks.

If you were in the mood for “drinks”, you could add 2 oz vodka or white rum. And peach sliver for garnish.

January 15, 2010

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Apple vinaigrette dinner salad

This is a good salad with anything. It plates beautifully, so you can use it for those snobby guest that pretend they like foie gras and snub their noses at california rolls because it isn’t real sushi (yet have never been to asia). This goes great with restaurant style chicken breast.

2 heads romaine lettuce chopped, or 1 head romaine and a soft leafed lettuce like butter. Make sure to tear soft leafed lettuce instead of cutting with knife though
1/2 red onion thinly sliced.
1/2 red apple thinly sliced.
1/2 granny smith apple thinly sliced
peel parmesan cheese with vegetable peeler in 2 inch peels. (very important in my opinion.. it changes the dynamic of the salad)

use a little lemon juice to coat the apples so they don’t brown. Put all ingredients in bowl and store in fridge until ready to use.

Dressing.
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup apple juice
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil (adjust to taste)
2 tsp honey
1 large pink kosher salt (always use kosher salt, never use table salt in anything you want to taste good… in my opinion)
5 grinds black pepper
a small squirt of dijon mustard
whisk together…

When ready to serve. Pull salad out of fridge, salt lettuce…. 1 pinch kosher salt. toss dressing to coat lettuce. Only enough to coat.
Plate salads, give a few grinds of black pepper I like tellicherry peppercorns.

January 15, 2010

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Fish tacos with grapefruit salsa

This recipe has a few different sauces to make, however they can be made the day before and still be awesome. This is an alternative to the fried varieties.

White fish. I like flounder for this one. It has a nice thickness to it, but any white fish is good. 1 fillet is good for 2-3 tacos.

green sauce.
1/2 bunch cilantro..
1/2 – 1 jalapeno
1 cup mayonnaise (I use the olive oil kind)
pinch kosher salt (only kosher salt)
3 grinds black pepper
2 cloves garlic
1 avocado
juice of 2 limes
blend together…

grapefruit salsa..
2 ruby red grapefruit (not yellow) if not very sweet, mix in 1 tsp sugar per grapefruit.
finely dice 1 red onion
1 jalapeno
1/2 -1 cucumber
1/2 bunch cilantro
pinch kosher salt
few grinds black pepper
juice of 1 lime
1-2 teaspoons olive oil

Put a little kosher salt and pepper on fillets.
Either cook in pan with a little olive oil (for 2-4 people) , grill (harder to grill fish, but good for outside party), electric skillet,. Preheat pan med-high heat. Add a little olive oil. Cook fish 3 minutes each side. Remove and put immediately on corn tortillas. Top with green sauce and grapefruit salsa.

January 15, 2010

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Restaurant style chicken breast

Its taken me years to figure out how to make a good chicken breast. I’ve always dried them out.. Its really bad when you try and make it for guest and everyone is chewing and chewing and drinking glasses of water telling you how great of a meal you made. I’ve done it.. alot! I know its pretty embarrassing, so I either cooked dark meat or beef.

Well those days are over. I figured it out! It works great for me every time. Try it a couple of times before you have guests to have the confidence. It pairs great with apple vinaigrette salad.

Put chicken breasts 1 at a time into gallon zip-lock bag. Pound to no thicker than 1/2 inch. I like just on the verge of breaking apart (about 3/8 inch).

Get a container to hold them in. a large glass casserole dish works great. In the dish put a little olive oil, sprinkle a generous pinch of kosher salt, a few grinds of pepper. add a layer of pounded chicken, then sprinkle with oil, salt and pepper, then next layer of chicken.. and so on until all chicken is in there. Cover, and leave container on counter.

Now this is the crucial part. Let the chicken come to almost room temp. If they are right out fridge, they will have to cook to long and dry out. I use an electric skillet to cook. I can cook like 4 breast at a time. I usually cook 10 lbs at a time. The breast are good cold on salads, or as something else for the next 3 days or so.

Anyways, I get the skillet as hot as it can get. Once its super duper hot, put the breast on it. Cook for exactly 2 minutes each side. Don’t guess at 2 minutes, or around 2 minutes. Set a timer. If you didn’t pound them down, then you will need to adjust to cook them correctly… But pound them down it makes a world of difference.

Pull them off, set them in a resting vessel. I use an empty ceramic crockpot. Fill it up and put the lid on. Let it rest for 5 minutes. Enjoy!

Please make sure chicken is all the way done before consuming.

January 15, 2010

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Food Salt differences

Ok, if you ask any chef what type of salt they use. More than likely they are going to tell you Kosher salt. The reason is… it is a lot better than table salt for cooking.
It stays on food better. It has a cleaner taste. It’s easier to control how much you are sprinkling on your food. Table salt is very easy to over salt.

There are other salts that you can use. Sea Salt, himalayan salt are a couple. And there are a lot of reasons that they are supposedly better for you than table salt, but without getting into all that… Kosher is the best bang for your buck in my opinion.

January 15, 2010

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Ham and Cheese Waffles

One of my all time favorite breakfast.

You can use just the pre-done waffle mix if you want.. Make waffle mix, add diced ham and swiss and cheddar cheeses into the batter. Make waffle and sprinkle with powdered sugar. Top with syrup.

On a side note. I like to use regular leftover waffles (no ham and cheese) as bread for ham or turkey sandwiches later. It toast awesome and doesn’t break down like some bread does.

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