As far as snacks go, this was so time consuming with little reward (remember the zucchini chips?) that it makes me almost want to buy a food dehydrator. I doubt I'll ever use fresh mushrooms this way again. It's no wonder all the mushroom jerky recipes call for those large portobello mushrooms. The mushroom slices shrink by more than half, which is why you'd want to use the largest mushrooms as possible. I, however, did not have portobello mushrooms and used fresh shitake mushrooms instead. Recipe ratio comes from Food52.
Ingredients
2 tbsp low sodium tamari soy sauce
3 tbsp apple cider vinegar
2 tbsp maple syrup
1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
1/4 tsp ground chili powder
x large or medium portobello mushrooms
Directions
Slice mushrooms to 1/4" thickness. Add to marinade. Refrigerate for 8 hours or overnight.
Preheat oven to 250 F and line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Arrange mushroom slices on the sheets.
Bake for 1.5 to 2 hours, or until the pieces have shrunken and are dried out. You could flip the slices at the midway time mark, but I didn't bother.
Certainly flavorful and I ate half before I stored the rest in the fridge.
As a snack food, this is a waste of time for so few calories.
I added the remainder of the finished batch to a soup and it was delicious.
Showing posts with label snacks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label snacks. Show all posts
Homemade Soft Pretzels, batch #2
I planned to make these yesterday but didn't get around to it. The 1-hour proof for the dough turned into a 24-hour proof on the kitchen counter. This hasn't affected the taste or the rise at all. It made 2 lb 7 oz of dough. I converted the weight to ounces then divided by the number of portions I wanted to make. In this recipe I am making 12 pretzels, so each weighed out to be 3 1/8 to 3 1/4 oz on the digital scale. The biggest difference between batch #1 and batch #2 is the exclusion of milk in the dough recipe and the use of baked baking soda in the boiling stage instead of baking soda.
This NY Times article suggests how baked baking soda affects bread-based recipes like noodles and pretzels. However, the sodium carbonate is not the same as potassium carbonate used in Chinese cooking for ramen noodles and mooncake dough. I store my baked baking soda in a lidded mason jar.
Also, the warm water for the yeast was only 75 degrees F instead of the usual 110-115 degrees F. This also doesn't seem to have any effect on the rise of the dough. The weather has been unusually warm for this time of the year. Yesterday we hit a high of 70 degrees, with humidity; though, today we are back in the mid-50s with rain.
Dough Ingredients
1 1/2 c warm water (115 degrees F)
1 tbsp organic granulated sugar
2 tsp kosher salt
2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast (or 1 package)
2 tbsp unsalted butter, melted (I think by mistake I put in 4 oz melted butter)
4 1/2 c unbleached all-purpose flour
Baking Soda Water Ingredients
2/3 c baked baking soda
10 c filtered water
Egg Wash for Pretzels
1 tbsp filtered water
1 egg yolk
Directions
For the dough ingredients, combine sugar, 1 tsp kosher salt and warm water in a 2-cup measuring cup. Stir to dissolve sugar and salt. Add yeast, stir. Let sit for 5 mins, until the yeast foams up.
In a 7-cup food processor, add flour, butter and 1 tsp kosher salt. Pulse together. Next, add the water/yeast slurry and blend until the dough comes together. Pulse or run the processor for 1-2 minutes. It'll be sticky (vs smooth and satiny in a stand mixer) and this is okay. You don't want to burn out the motor mixing a heavy dough like this.
Prepare a 5-quart mixing bowl with 1 tsp olive oil. Just swirl it around on the bottom. Dump the blob of dough into the bowl. You could rotate the blob so that it gets coated with the oil, but this is really not necessary. Cover the bowl with a dinner plate and set in a warm place in the kitchen. Let dough rise for at least an hour.
Bring a pot of water (10 cups) plus the baked baking soda to a boil. This will take some time, so better to start this step before portioning the dough.
Weigh your dough. Then divide it by the number of portions you want to make. This batch made 12 pretzels when rolled out to 18-20 inches. Alton's method makes 8 portions at 24 inches.
Place your dough on baking sheets lined with parchment paper, and cover with a clean kitchen towel. Given the day's humidity, I did not spritz the kitchen towels with water.
Roll each piece into a 18" to 20" log. If you have trouble figuring out how long this really is, either have a 24" cutting board and measure out 4" from the edge and mark it with a post-it note or tape one of those IKEA paper tape measures to your kitchen counter.
I did a variety of shapes to play with the dough. A double twist looked the most fashionable. Place each shaped pretzel back onto the parchment paper and cover with a kitchen towel until you have rolled out and shaped all the portions of dough. At this point, you could let the dough rise again. Mine did not and that is probably because I didn't knead the dough until it was smooth, or because I let it proof so long the yeast was entirely spent from farting all night.
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. (This should take about 10 minutes)
By now, the pot of water should have come to a boil. Drop in two pretzels at a time and boil for 30 seconds. I used a slotted metal spatula to get the pretzels. Remove pretzels from the water and place back onto the parchment-lined trays. Repeat until all the pretzels have bathed in the baking soda solution.
Next, make the egg wash by whisking together water and egg yolk with a fork in a small bowl. Lightly brush this on top of each pretzel before baking. You can sprinkle coarse kosher salt on top or herbs or grated cheese or leave it plain. For this batch, I used a sparse amount of kosher salt.
Bake for 14 minutes total. At the 7-minute mark, rotate all the trays.
Let pretzels cool on a rack. Enjoy with or without mustard.
The ingredient ratio and methodology is adapted from Alton Brown.
This NY Times article suggests how baked baking soda affects bread-based recipes like noodles and pretzels. However, the sodium carbonate is not the same as potassium carbonate used in Chinese cooking for ramen noodles and mooncake dough. I store my baked baking soda in a lidded mason jar.
Also, the warm water for the yeast was only 75 degrees F instead of the usual 110-115 degrees F. This also doesn't seem to have any effect on the rise of the dough. The weather has been unusually warm for this time of the year. Yesterday we hit a high of 70 degrees, with humidity; though, today we are back in the mid-50s with rain.
Dough Ingredients
1 1/2 c warm water (115 degrees F)
1 tbsp organic granulated sugar
2 tsp kosher salt
2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast (or 1 package)
2 tbsp unsalted butter, melted (I think by mistake I put in 4 oz melted butter)
4 1/2 c unbleached all-purpose flour
Baking Soda Water Ingredients
2/3 c baked baking soda
10 c filtered water
Egg Wash for Pretzels
1 tbsp filtered water
1 egg yolk
Directions
For the dough ingredients, combine sugar, 1 tsp kosher salt and warm water in a 2-cup measuring cup. Stir to dissolve sugar and salt. Add yeast, stir. Let sit for 5 mins, until the yeast foams up.
In a 7-cup food processor, add flour, butter and 1 tsp kosher salt. Pulse together. Next, add the water/yeast slurry and blend until the dough comes together. Pulse or run the processor for 1-2 minutes. It'll be sticky (vs smooth and satiny in a stand mixer) and this is okay. You don't want to burn out the motor mixing a heavy dough like this.
Prepare a 5-quart mixing bowl with 1 tsp olive oil. Just swirl it around on the bottom. Dump the blob of dough into the bowl. You could rotate the blob so that it gets coated with the oil, but this is really not necessary. Cover the bowl with a dinner plate and set in a warm place in the kitchen. Let dough rise for at least an hour.
Bring a pot of water (10 cups) plus the baked baking soda to a boil. This will take some time, so better to start this step before portioning the dough.
Weigh your dough. Then divide it by the number of portions you want to make. This batch made 12 pretzels when rolled out to 18-20 inches. Alton's method makes 8 portions at 24 inches.
Place your dough on baking sheets lined with parchment paper, and cover with a clean kitchen towel. Given the day's humidity, I did not spritz the kitchen towels with water.
Roll each piece into a 18" to 20" log. If you have trouble figuring out how long this really is, either have a 24" cutting board and measure out 4" from the edge and mark it with a post-it note or tape one of those IKEA paper tape measures to your kitchen counter.
I did a variety of shapes to play with the dough. A double twist looked the most fashionable. Place each shaped pretzel back onto the parchment paper and cover with a kitchen towel until you have rolled out and shaped all the portions of dough. At this point, you could let the dough rise again. Mine did not and that is probably because I didn't knead the dough until it was smooth, or because I let it proof so long the yeast was entirely spent from farting all night.
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. (This should take about 10 minutes)
By now, the pot of water should have come to a boil. Drop in two pretzels at a time and boil for 30 seconds. I used a slotted metal spatula to get the pretzels. Remove pretzels from the water and place back onto the parchment-lined trays. Repeat until all the pretzels have bathed in the baking soda solution.
Next, make the egg wash by whisking together water and egg yolk with a fork in a small bowl. Lightly brush this on top of each pretzel before baking. You can sprinkle coarse kosher salt on top or herbs or grated cheese or leave it plain. For this batch, I used a sparse amount of kosher salt.
Bake for 14 minutes total. At the 7-minute mark, rotate all the trays.
Let pretzels cool on a rack. Enjoy with or without mustard.
The ingredient ratio and methodology is adapted from Alton Brown.
Baked Zucchini Chips
These chips took a lot of time and effort for so little reward. Although, now I can say that I ate two zucchinis in five minutes. I'll need a lot more trays, oven racks, or a food dehydrator to do this recipe again. My all-time favorite way to eat zucchini is breaded and deep fried.
Preheat oven to 225 degrees F.
Ingredients
organic zucchinis, as many as will fit in the palm of your hand
a pinch of salt, less than 1/4 tsp
1 tbsp olive oil
Directions
Use the cutting blade disc with the food processor, this is faster and easier than using a mandoline slicer. The only advantage the mandoline has over the food processor is the width size of the vegetable.
On a parchment paper-lined baking tray, place zucchini rounds side by side until the tray is full. Repeat with other trays. Use a pastry brush to brush each round with a little bit of olive oil. Sprinkle salt on top, if you want. You can always add more salt after these finish baking.
If your oven heats evenly, you shouldn't need to rotate the trays.
Bake for two hours, or until everything looks dry and lightly browned. Use a spatula to remove the chips from the trays to a plate or airtight container, should the chips actually last that long.
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| Zucchini chips: slice, place, bake! |
Preheat oven to 225 degrees F.
Ingredients
organic zucchinis, as many as will fit in the palm of your hand
a pinch of salt, less than 1/4 tsp
1 tbsp olive oil
Directions
Use the cutting blade disc with the food processor, this is faster and easier than using a mandoline slicer. The only advantage the mandoline has over the food processor is the width size of the vegetable.
On a parchment paper-lined baking tray, place zucchini rounds side by side until the tray is full. Repeat with other trays. Use a pastry brush to brush each round with a little bit of olive oil. Sprinkle salt on top, if you want. You can always add more salt after these finish baking.
If your oven heats evenly, you shouldn't need to rotate the trays.
Bake for two hours, or until everything looks dry and lightly browned. Use a spatula to remove the chips from the trays to a plate or airtight container, should the chips actually last that long.
Sweet Potato Fries
These did not come out as crispy as I had hoped they. They are cooked through and resemble fries. I used Japanese sweet potatoes (red skin, yellow flesh) for this; though certainly garnet yams (red skin, orange flesh) or the other sweet potatoes (brown skin, white/beige flesh) can be also be used.
Ingredients
2 medium sweet potatoes, cut into 1/2" matchsticks
olive oil
kosher salt
freshly ground black pepper
Directions
Clean and cut sweet potatoes so that the pieces resemble fries. The idea is to cut them into uniform sizes so the fries cook evenly. Toss in a large bowl with olive oil, kosher salt, and black pepper.
Spread onto a baking tray in a single layer.
Bake for 10 minutes at 450 degrees F. Remove from oven and flip fries with a spatula. Return tray to the oven and bake for 10 more minutes.
Serve with homemade ketchup.
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| The Foodening Blog: Sweet Potato Fries |
Ingredients
2 medium sweet potatoes, cut into 1/2" matchsticks
olive oil
kosher salt
freshly ground black pepper
Directions
Clean and cut sweet potatoes so that the pieces resemble fries. The idea is to cut them into uniform sizes so the fries cook evenly. Toss in a large bowl with olive oil, kosher salt, and black pepper.
Spread onto a baking tray in a single layer.
Bake for 10 minutes at 450 degrees F. Remove from oven and flip fries with a spatula. Return tray to the oven and bake for 10 more minutes.
Serve with homemade ketchup.
Kale Chips, the easier way
Nearly year-round, both Trader Joe's and Costco carry bags of pre-washed, ready-to-use fresh kale leaves. This takes a lot of the prep work for these chips away since all you need to do now is remove whatever stems are still attached to the leaves. By the end of summer, the stems are usually thick and woody and not terribly good for eating.
In two 5-quart mixing bowls, separate one Trader Joe's bag of fresh kale leaves into equal portions. With each bowl, you'll be able to spread the leaves in a single layer across two 17" x 11" rimmed cookie sheets.
Add a teaspoon of olive oil to each bowl and work the oil onto the leaves with your hands.
If you are going to lightly salt these, use less than 1/4 tsp of regular table salt or sea salt. A little bit of salt goes a long way. I used a Himalayan pink salt that I ground into a finer texture using a mortar and pestle. You don't have to do this. I just wanted to see what it would taste like.
Bake in a pre-heated 350 degrees F oven for 9-10 minutes.
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| Fresh kale ready to be baked in the oven |
Add a teaspoon of olive oil to each bowl and work the oil onto the leaves with your hands.
If you are going to lightly salt these, use less than 1/4 tsp of regular table salt or sea salt. A little bit of salt goes a long way. I used a Himalayan pink salt that I ground into a finer texture using a mortar and pestle. You don't have to do this. I just wanted to see what it would taste like.
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| Kale chips, ready to eat! |
Bake in a pre-heated 350 degrees F oven for 9-10 minutes.
Baked Nachos with Black Beans and Sundried Tomatoes
For a rainy August day, this dish really hit the spot. I thought I'd add in some sun-dried tomatoes for flavor and color contrast. I found that the shallowest oven-safe dish I had to use was a pie plate, imagine that. If I make this again, I think I will try making a cheese sauce for the nachos.
Ingredients
some quantity of organic tortilla chips
a large quantity of a cheese (jack cheese)
an equal portion of another cheese (grass-fed sharp cheddar cheese)
6-8 sun-dried tomato strips, roughly chopped
1/2 can of organic black beans, rinsed and drained
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
Layer ingredients starting with chips at the bottom, followed by cheese, then beans and some sun-dried tomatoes. Repeat until all the ingredients are used up.
Bake for 20 minutes, or until all the cheese has melted.
Ingredients
some quantity of organic tortilla chips
a large quantity of a cheese (jack cheese)
an equal portion of another cheese (grass-fed sharp cheddar cheese)
6-8 sun-dried tomato strips, roughly chopped
1/2 can of organic black beans, rinsed and drained
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
Layer ingredients starting with chips at the bottom, followed by cheese, then beans and some sun-dried tomatoes. Repeat until all the ingredients are used up.
Bake for 20 minutes, or until all the cheese has melted.
Krispy Kale Khips
I can't believe packages of these sell for $5 for a 1.2 oz bag at the grocery store. Kale is in season almost all year in the PNW. Best pricing at a grocery store will be about a dollar a bunch for fresh green kale during mid-summer. Red and multicolored kale is slightly pricier, but it doesn't matter which variety is used for these "chips". Definitely remove all the tough 'ribs' from the leaves before shredding them by hand. The end product is ideally light, crispy and slightly salty.
[edit: later that day] I weighed the remainder of what I didn't nibble on, and it would appear that a bunch of fresh kale (roughly 1 lb) yields about 2 oz crispy kale chips.
I did three batches with a head of kale; largely because only a third of the leaves would fit on the baking sheet at one time. I found that using a 9x13 glass baking dish did not work so well in evenly drying the leaves. As for flavorings, here's what I used:
[edit: later that day] I weighed the remainder of what I didn't nibble on, and it would appear that a bunch of fresh kale (roughly 1 lb) yields about 2 oz crispy kale chips.
I did three batches with a head of kale; largely because only a third of the leaves would fit on the baking sheet at one time. I found that using a 9x13 glass baking dish did not work so well in evenly drying the leaves. As for flavorings, here's what I used:
- batch #1: coarsely ground Himalayan pink salt with Mrs. Dash tomato/garlic/basil seasoning
- batch #2: lightly sprinkled with black truffle oil salt
- batch #3: lightly sprinkled sea salt
Batch #1 came out way too salty for my taste but light and crunchy. The process is pretty simple and the messiest part is preparing the leaves for baking. Taking time to massage oil into the individual leaves helps the "chips" attract salt and/or spices, or at least stick on better.
As for plating, I suggest a parchment cone in a large glass tumbler or a decorative rectangular dish.
Ingredients
a bunch of kale, washed and stems removed
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
sea salt, to taste
Directions
Preheat oven to 275 degrees F.
1. After you have washed and dried the kale leaves, remove the thick rib from the middle of the leaf. Tear the leafy parts into bite-sized pieces. These will retain most of their size after baking. Toss in a large bowl with olive oil.
2. Arrange leaves in a single layer on a baking sheet and lightly sprinkle with salt.
3. Bake for 20 minutes. You could rotate the leaves after 10 minutes of baking, but that depends on how much residual oil is on the leaves. I did not flip the leaves on two of the three batches and they came out okay.
4. Serve immediately.
Homemade Soft Prezels (batch #1)
This recipe seemed easy enough to do. How could it possibly fail after having such rave reviews by FN commenters. There are a few things wrong with it. For starters, the dough is way too soft. Yeah, I know the title of the recipe is soft pretzels but there is soft, and then there is soft and chewy; the latter of which is what we pay a premium for at amusement parks. These taste okay. I made some alterations to the mustard sauce recipe. And, because our weather went from awesome to sux0rz, I used a bread machine to mix and proof the dough. I don't recommend using coarse salt. With the baking soda bath, it tastes salty enough.
Ingredients
1 c. whole milk
1 pkg active dry yeast (2 1/4 tsp)
2 tbsp brown sugar, packed
2 1/4 c. unbleached all-purpose flour
2 tbsp unsalted butter, diced
1 tsp fine salt
1/3 c. baking soda + 3 cups warm water
a stick of cold butter (optional)
Directions
1. In a bread machine, add these ingredients in this order: milk, sugar, salt, flour, and yeast. Set the machine on the "dough" cycle. Come back in 1.5 hours.
2. Take the dough out of the bread machine. It'll be sticky, but manageable. Knead it a few times until it is smooth. Using a sharp knife, divide the dough into equal portions. This batch made six pretzels and from the photo, apparently I didn't roll the dough to a long enough rope length.
3. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.
4. In a shallow baking dish, dissolve baking soda in warm water. Dip each pretzel into the soda water. Take out and set onto a parchment paper-lined baking sheet.
5. Bake pretzels for 10-12 minutes, or until the tops are golden brown.
6. Remove pretzels to a rack to cool. Optional step: use a cold stick of butter on the hot pretzels to lightly butter them. Don't add any more coarse salt. They should be good to eat.
Pretzel Dipping Sauce
2 tbsp organic mayonnaise
2 tbsp Plouchman's mustard
1 tbsp brown sugar
1/2 tsp rice vinegar
splash of smoked chipotle Tabasco sauce
Mix ingredients together in a small bowl. This, btw, makes too much sauce for a mere half dozen pretzels. I'd probably cut the ratio in half again.
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| Homemade Soft Pretzels, lightly buttered |
1 c. whole milk
1 pkg active dry yeast (2 1/4 tsp)
2 tbsp brown sugar, packed
2 1/4 c. unbleached all-purpose flour
2 tbsp unsalted butter, diced
1 tsp fine salt
1/3 c. baking soda + 3 cups warm water
a stick of cold butter (optional)
Directions
1. In a bread machine, add these ingredients in this order: milk, sugar, salt, flour, and yeast. Set the machine on the "dough" cycle. Come back in 1.5 hours.
2. Take the dough out of the bread machine. It'll be sticky, but manageable. Knead it a few times until it is smooth. Using a sharp knife, divide the dough into equal portions. This batch made six pretzels and from the photo, apparently I didn't roll the dough to a long enough rope length.
3. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.
4. In a shallow baking dish, dissolve baking soda in warm water. Dip each pretzel into the soda water. Take out and set onto a parchment paper-lined baking sheet.
5. Bake pretzels for 10-12 minutes, or until the tops are golden brown.
6. Remove pretzels to a rack to cool. Optional step: use a cold stick of butter on the hot pretzels to lightly butter them. Don't add any more coarse salt. They should be good to eat.
Pretzel Dipping Sauce
2 tbsp organic mayonnaise
2 tbsp Plouchman's mustard
1 tbsp brown sugar
1/2 tsp rice vinegar
splash of smoked chipotle Tabasco sauce
Mix ingredients together in a small bowl. This, btw, makes too much sauce for a mere half dozen pretzels. I'd probably cut the ratio in half again.
Homemade Granola Trail Mix
I'm baffled at the grocery store prices for granola and/or trail mix. I thought I'd give this a whirl since the weather is becoming warmer and drier; soon it'll be prime hiking season and I'll want something tasty to nibble on. This is a recipe that you can totally customize to what's already in the pantry and to your liking. The maple syrup can be substituted with honey and raisins for cranberries. It just so happened that I used the last of the raisins in a batch of oatmeal cookies.
Ingredients
2 c. old-fashioned rolled oats
1/2 c. raw pumpkin seeds
1/2 c. dried black currants
1/4 c. sweetened dried cranberries
1/4 c. raw almonds, sliced
1/4 c. lightly-salted roasted almonds, whole
1/4 c. maple syrup
1/4 c. brown sugar
2 tbsp unsalted butter
2 tbsp water
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
Directions
Preheat oven to 260 degrees F.
1. In a large bowl, combine oats, almonds, pumpkin seeds, currants, cranberries.
2. In a saucepan over medium heat, melt butter with maple syrup, brown sugar, water, vanilla, and ground cinnamon. Let cool before pouring over oat mixture. Mix well and pour into a greased 13" x 9" x 2" baking dish.
3. Bake for 30 minutes at 260 degrees F, stirring once every 15 minutes. Raise oven temp to 275 degrees F for 15 minutes. Remove from oven and stir occassionally as the granola cools. Store in an airtight container.
Ingredients
2 c. old-fashioned rolled oats
1/2 c. raw pumpkin seeds
1/2 c. dried black currants
1/4 c. sweetened dried cranberries
1/4 c. raw almonds, sliced
1/4 c. lightly-salted roasted almonds, whole
1/4 c. maple syrup
1/4 c. brown sugar
2 tbsp unsalted butter
2 tbsp water
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
Directions
Preheat oven to 260 degrees F.
1. In a large bowl, combine oats, almonds, pumpkin seeds, currants, cranberries.
2. In a saucepan over medium heat, melt butter with maple syrup, brown sugar, water, vanilla, and ground cinnamon. Let cool before pouring over oat mixture. Mix well and pour into a greased 13" x 9" x 2" baking dish.
3. Bake for 30 minutes at 260 degrees F, stirring once every 15 minutes. Raise oven temp to 275 degrees F for 15 minutes. Remove from oven and stir occassionally as the granola cools. Store in an airtight container.
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