Milk Loaf Attempt #5

Posted on January 19, 2013 by The Giddy Tigress

Determination is my middle name.

So here’s my 5th attempt at baking the milk loaf I failed at several times before.  I made sure to NOT add the salt directly with the yeast and I warmed up the mixture of milk, sugar, salt and butter before mixing it to the flour and yeast.  Also, another seasoned baker friend of mine told me that the egg should be at room temperature (not taken directly from the refrigerator).  So I had already taken the egg out a day earlier.

Everything was all set.

My KitchenAid went to work and I left the dough to rise.  After 1.5 hours, it didn’t rise all that much, only a smidgen. Bummer 🙁

But I proceeded anyway, to knead it a little manually and the left it to rise again.  At this point, I had to go out to fetch the kids, so the dough had more than the allocated time of 15 minutes for the second rise.

When we came home, unfortunately the rising of the dough had not reached my expectations yet, nevertheless, I shaped it up and placed it in the baking pan, and yeah…left it to rise yet again.

…and this time it rose! 🙂

Big time.

Here’s the resulting loaf of milk bread I made.

Oh, the whitish part on the lower left is just the flour from the bread pan.  I used it to prevent the loaf from sticking to the pan.

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Not Everything is About Chicken Soup…Tomato & Basil Soup Saves The Day!

Posted on January 18, 2013 by The Giddy Tigress

For the past few days, my entire family has been under the weather.  Hannah had a bout of food poisoning and is nursing a slight cough now.  Ethan is coughing a little too, although both the kids are well on their way to recovery now.  Both Pete and I have our noses blocked now. 🙁

It’s no fun at all, I’m sure you know, and just as I was racking my brains today trying to come up with something comforting and soothing to enjoy (apart from the traditional chicken soup), I figured I would just throw some stuff together and see if it tastes good.

Now I know that basil is supposed to be good for ailments such as cough and cold, so I definitely wanted to add that into the soup.  Then I just added whatever else I thought would taste yummy, and so I ended up with my very own version of Seafood Tomato Basil Soup!

Ingredients:

  • 3 cloves of garlic, minced
  • 1 yellow onion, minced
  • Some olive oil
  • 2 medium tomatoes, chopped into cubes roughly
  • Italian seasoning
  • 3 tbsp tomato puree or instant tomato pasta sauce
  • About 20-25 leaves of fresh basil, roughly chopped
  • 15-20 shrimps, peeled
  • 1-2 cups water, depending on consistency preferred
  • Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

  1. Heat up olive oil over a medium flame, and sautée the onions, garlic and Italian seasoning until fragrant.
  2. Pour in the tomatoes and tomato puree/pasta sauce.
  3. Add the water and increase heat until soup comes to a boil.
  4. Stir in the shrimps, and lower the heat till a simmer.  You could also add in other types of seafood like fish slices, clams, crabmeat etc.
  5. Add salt and pepper to taste and simmer for about 2 minutes.
  6. Stir in the fresh basil and mix gently.
  7. Serve hot, either with steamed rice, bread, buns or even pasta!

Have you cooked up a recipe simply on a whim before? 🙂

This soupy recipe was certainly a welcome change for our palates, and the tomato and basil went so well together!  I’m definitely adding in some clams the next time I cook this!

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Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread

Posted on January 15, 2013 by The Giddy Tigress

Last week, an item we had ordered appeared on my doorstep and I think I just might have heard the birds singing when I opened it up. 🙂

Hubby and I had a small debate over the color choice; initially I had wanted the mixer in Green Apple, but somewhere along the line, something happened and we ended up with this Nickel Pearl baby.

Anyway, I read somewhere that of all the interesting things this KitchenAid can help with in the kitchen, one of the most outstanding uses was in the bread-making area.

Now, if you’ve read my blog long enough, you would know that I have not had very much success with bread-making, whether with a bread maker or the traditional knead-by-hand method.  So naturally I was excited to put this mixer to the bread-making test.

Friday morning saw me mixing the ingredients in the mixer for a loaf of milk bread.  I had great hopes for this bread, I’d tell you.  It was supposed to be a fool-proof recipe, that would produce the softest loaf of bread ever.  Alas, disaster struck along the way, and my kneaded dough refused to rise.

I baked it anyway, and surprisingly, my kids devoured the entire loaf of bread within 30 minutes, despite it not being the bread consistency I was looking for.  It was more like cake, which I guessed they liked.

Anyway, I figured it could be because of the cold milk I used, so I tried it a second time, this time heating up the milk and butter first, but the results were even worse than the first attempt.  The bread turned out underbaked and then overbaked when I put it back in the oven.  It was heavy and did not even resemble bread. 🙁

My third attempt was yesterday.  I decided to try it the same way the first attempt I made, but I figured the reason for the dough not rising could be because of the cold temperature in winter.  So I warmed up the oven for a minute and then placed the dough to rise in the warm oven.  No luck.  The dough was just as stubborn as ever, and the resulting loaf turned out hard as a rock and was hardly edible.  No pictures this time, because I was just plain tired.

So I did some research online, and asked a seasoned bread-baker for help.  She advised me to mix just half the flour first and then add the rest as necessary to form a good kneadable dough.  Also, she suggested warming up the liquids, but I was cautioned against making the liquid too hot, for fear it would kill the yeast.

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Homemade Hamburgers for New Year’s Day

Posted on January 2, 2013 by The Giddy Tigress

Happy New Year everyone!  Hope everyone had the grandest of celebrations, and is all set to kick off the New Year with a bang!

On New Year’s Day, when most of the restaurants are closed (or so we thought), we decided to have a comfy cozy lunch at home.  To jazz up our menu in a giddy manner, I whipped up some homemade hamburgers.

Oh yes, I did.

If you haven’t tried making hamburgers at home, you should!  It’s super easy to make, and the result is a moist and juicy burger which you know for sure what went into it.  Score on all counts, I’d say.

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Best Things from 2012

Posted on December 30, 2012 by The Giddy Tigress

As we near the end of the year 2012, I realize I have a lot to be thankful for.  The year 2012 has been a fantastic year, and although I did not blog as often as I had hoped I would, I am grateful for all you readers who keep coming back for more.  I have also made many new friends through blogging and that is always a PLUS for me.

I’ve not done a year-end reflective post for a while now, so I figured why not now?  I enjoyed reading so many reflective posts from my favorite bloggers, and I hope that this will also put a smile on your face, as it did mine.  So I present to you now my simple walkthrough of my Best Things from 2012.  Feel free to share what your Best Things from this year has been too…I’d love to read all about it!

Best Healthy Thing I Did

Something I will never regret doing was that I got started on a regular exercising regime in the gym sometime in March this year.

It had been …what?…almost 7 years since I last hit the gym and it felt really good to feel strong and healthy again.  Gaining that muscle tone and strength was really awesome, and it also made my first few months of pregnancy much better.

Best Blessing of The Year

God gave us our best blessing of the year when we found out we were expecting baby no.3!

With two perfect little miracles to adore and love, we now have another chance to shower our love on a third miracle, due early next year.  It will definitely be one of our highlights of next year, and I honestly can’t wait.

Best Memorable Surprise

Our relocation to Stateside this year was definitely an unplanned one, and one that took me completely by surprise.

I welcomed the move with open arms, and despite the many obstacles that stood in our way, I am proud that we made it thus far.  God certainly has a plan for us and we’re putting everything in His hands now.

It’s an exciting adventure for us all, and every day we experience new things here; even though it’s only for several months, I can count on this as something that will change our lives forever.

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