Mum's Cranberry Relish-Brie App

In Progress...

Whole Wheat Rolls

My husband has his garage and I have my kitchen. We have a "rule" that when something new comes in, something old must come out. For an early Christmas gift I was given a beautiful Professional Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer. I love it as though it's a piece of art. I've used it three times and I love it so much I wish I could marry it. ;) As the stand mixer came in, a bowl came out. Just a bowl. My husband wasn't impressed with my "out" selection and suggested I "out" my bread maker.

We received our bread maker as a wedding gift almost 6 years ago. I've used it to bake white bread, jalapeno cheddar bread and even the non-successful strawberries and cream bread. I was on a kick for a while, but since it's so big and I love open counter space, it got put away.

After collecting a little dust as it sat under the tupperware and hearing the threat of being ousted, my bread maker came out of hiding and has plans for a work out.

Whole wheat roll recipe: about 6 ingredients. Easy! The bread maker mixes, kneads, rises the bread dough. All I have to do it punch it out and let it rise again, portion it out and roll it into rolls.

Augh. Not easy. The directions, upon further investigation, said that whole wheat usually needs a third rise. Mine did not. After punching out the air from the first rise, I let it rise again. It was so hard to shape into rolls. After calculating the weight of each roll to ensure that I got the 18 each the recipe called for, I only got 16. Stupid math.

After rolling and rolling those stupid rolls, my arms were hurting and I was having horrible flashbacks to the worst memories I have of college. I was working for the Chef of the University President and I got to select menu items for a dinner the President was hosting. The Chef always encouraged me to choose items that I wouldn't normally get the chance to prepare. I chose homemade rolls. All the work that goes into it is not worth it!

Sure, making a loaf in the bread maker is easy, making a loaf by hand is not. Making rolls where the bread maker starts the process seems easy, but finishing the rolls is not.

Alas, the rolls came out better than expected. My Dad snagged one right out of the oven to taste test it. I got a thumbs-up from the family. Even with the encouraging feedback - never again will I make rolls!

Yorkshire Pudding

I have the honor of hosting Christmas Dinner this year. There will be 12 of us. I grew up eating a traditional English Christmas Dinner consisting of Roast Beef and Yorkshire Pudding. Even though I am a vegetarian now, I still consider this to be one of the best dinners on Earth (even though I haven't eaten beef in about 22 years). I wanted my guests to have a fantastic meal the way I remember it.

My English Mum once gave me a British tea towel with a Yorkshire Pudding recipe on it. I've only made Y.P. maybe once or twice myself and since it had been so long, I decided I needed to do a test run before trying to serve it to twelve of us.

Count down to Christmas Dinner: 11 days.

My recipe calls for eggs, flour, salt, milk, water, dripping (or pan spray for us vegetarians). Simple. You mix it, let it sit for an hour, warm up your muffin tin in the oven (with the drippings) and bake. Before it was re-named Yorkshire Pudding it was called Dripping Pudding. Thank goodness that a recipe author rename it!

"A Yorkshire pudding isn't a Yorkshire pudding if it is less than four inches tall, says the Royal Society of Chemistry"; true Yorkshire people would disagree - the modern trend has been to aim for Puddings of almost Souffle proportions." - Wikipedia.

As they bake they rise so impressively. As they are taken out they fall. This is a good thing since it gives a place to put your gravy.

Update: The Y.P. turned out beautifully on Christmas Day!

Dinner @ No Frill Grill, Virginia Beach

In Progress...