Cheese and Garlic Bread/Green Bean Caserole

d we dicided to make Green Bean Caserole to go along with that. Donald took the time to french cut the green beans, and I made the rest. Since I've never used fresh green beans for this, I'll throw that recipe in here too. 

The cheese and garlic bread was a stroke of genius on my part.  I've had things like this before, but really just made this recipe up on my own. It is so good!  Enjoy. 

Garlic Cheese Bread

Ingredients:

1 c shredded cheddar cheese

1/2 c shredded mozzerella

2 tbsp butter

2 tbsp minced garlic (that's right! but you can use less if you don't like it)

2 tbsp sour cream 

6 pieces of italian bread

Directions:

In a small bowl, melt the butter in the microwave for 30 seconds. Add the cheeses and garlic and mix thoroughly. Then add the sour cream. The mix should smooth out a bit. Spread onto bread. 

Note: I buttered my bread first, but I don't think you need to. 

Bake at 400 degrees for about 10 minutes or until the bread begins to brown on the bottom. 

Note 2: I'd add chives to this, for some color.

Green Bean Caserole - Fresh Green Beans!

Ingredients: 

1 can cream of mushroom soup

1/2 cup milk

1 1/2 cups french fried onions

3 cups french cut fresh green beans

Pepper

Directions:

Cut the green beans in half, the long way. This takes forever. And ever. Totally worth it. 

Boil the beans in a medium saucepan for 10 minutes or until they are soft. Drain completely in a strainer, then mix with 2/3 cup french onions, the soup, and the milk. top with the rest of the french onions. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes.

The main dish here is the raviolo, gorgonzola ravioli from Trader Joe's. 

Breakfast of Kings

Donald and I decided to make breakfast this morning. Usually on saturday mornings we go out to our favorite diner for breakfast. All the waitresses know us and everything, and will give us crap when we go there next (probably tomorrow...). However, we woke up to a monsoon. It was pouring, windy, and thundering. The RADAR told me that this wasn't a short lived storm, so we decided to make breakfast. And let me tell you... it was good.

Breakfast of Kings (for 2)
100% wheat toast, mexican omelette (cooked hard like I like) and hashbrowns.

Hashbrowns:
2 medium potatos, shredded using a cheese shredder or something like that, they should look like this:


1/4 onion, also shredded
Olive Oil
Salt
Pepper

1. Heat olive oil in a medium pan, the oil and pan need to be very hot. We used our express burner on medium high.
   
2. Add the potato and onion to the pan, add salt and pepper.
3. Cook potatos over med high heat for 5-8 minutes or until they're cooked through (they start to shrink a lot). Stir occasionally to keep from browning too much. The moisture will begin to cook out of the potatos. You may have to add a little more olive oil.
4. Once the potato is cooked through, use the bottom of your spatula to flatten the potatos into the bottom of the pan. Cook that way until the bottom of the potato pancake is dark brown.
5. Flip the entire potato pancake (cut if you need to before flipping) and repeat on the other side. Remove from pan when its done cooking. YUMM!

Mexican Omelette:
5 eggs (for 2 omelettes)
Shredded cheese, mexican blend
Chopped tomato
Salsa
Cooking spray.

1. Heat pan and coat with cooking spray.
2. Scramble eggs in a bowl then pour into heated pan. Allow to cook for a few minutes or until you can flip it.
3. Put cheese, tomato (if desired) on top. Once cooked, fold the omelette over onto itself and allow cheese to melt. Serve immediately with salsa on top (there is no salsa on ours, but normally we do this!).

Serve breakfast with toast, preferably made from the bread in my last post.

Here's a picture of Donald's half eaten breakfast!

Pecan Chocolate Swirl Loaf

I have a bread baking book I bought when I got my breadmaker for Christmas this past year. I love my breadmaker, but the book isn't great. 90% of the time, the dough is too dry. I almost have to double the liquid in the recipe. Additionally, it usually takes 2x the rise time.

So I take the recipes and 'fix them'. This is their Pecan Chocolate Swirl Loaf. It can be made in a breadmaker or by hand.

Pecan Chocolate Swirl Loaf

Ingredients:
Bread
3tbsp butter
1c milk (add additional milk to bring dough together)
2eggs, beaten
4.5c white bread flour
1/4c sugar
1tsp salt
1.5tsp fast-action dried yeast

Filling
4oz plain dark chocolate, finely chopped
1/2c pecan, roughly chopped
2tbst sugar
1 egg yolk, to glaze


Breadmaker directions: Follow the directions for your breadmaker, usually this means placing the wet ingrdients in the bottom of the pan, dry ingredients on top, and the yeast at the very top. Run on "dough" or "sweet dough" setting. Bread should rise to 2x the original size.

By hand:

1. Put flour into large bowl, add butter and mix with fingers until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
2. Add salt, sugar, and yeast.
3. Add beaten eggs and gradually mix in milk until a soft dough forms.
4. Kneed on floured surface for 5 minutes. Put the dough back in the bowl and cover in plastic wrap. Place bowl in warm place for 1 hour or until dough reaches 2x original size.

After first rise from breadmaker or by hand:

1. Tip dough out onto lightly floured surface. Kneed well, then roll out to 11" square.
2. Sprinkle with 3/4 of the chocolate and pecans, plus all of the sugar for the filling:
3. Roll up dough and place into bread tin. Cover losely with oiled plastic wrap. Leave in a warm place for 30 min or until the bread reaches the top of the tin. (NOTE: I had to rise mine overnight in the fridge, so it got a little big)
4. Preheat oven to 400.
   
5. Remove the plastic wrap and brush the egg yolk plus 1 teaspoon of water (beaten) onto the top of the bread.
6. You have 2 options here, top now and bake with toppings, or use a chocolate icing afterwards. I chose the chocolate icing, but you can also add the last 1/4 of the chocolate and pecans to the top of the bread.
7. Bake for 40 minutes, or until the bread is well risen, deep brown, and sounds hollow when tapped with the finger tips. (NOTE: If you do bake with the pecans/chocolate on top, after 10 minutes, cover the bread loosely with foil to prevent overbrowning).
8. Remove the bread from the oven, losen with a knife and remove to a wire rack to cool.
9. Option: If you didn't bake with the chocolate, melt the remaining chocolate/pecans in the microwave or double boiler, spread onto top of the bread. (NOTE: I didn't have enough pecans, so there's just chocolate on top of mine!)
   

Enjoy!