Cheese Fondue for Two

When Matt and I got married we asked for, and received, a fondue pot.  I really wanted one, but it's not the most practical gift. I can't say we've used it regularly over the years, but we broke it out for Christmas Eve dinner and had a wonderful cheese fondue. 

Melty, tangy cheese on all manner of fruits, vegetables and bread is about the best meal there is.  We watched Die Hard while enjoying our fondue, and it may just be a new Christmas Eve tradition!

I don't know what Matt enjoyed more, eating the fondue, or arranging the fruit, veggies and bread on the tray.  

Here's the recipe for Fondue for Two.  This is enough for a meal for two hungry people or an appetizer or snack for four.  Double the recipe and add more hearty dippers like salami and pretzels to feed a crowd. 

Ingredients:

1 garlic clove

1 cup dry white wine

250g Emmental cheese, shredded

250g Gruyere cheese, shredded

1 tablespoon cornstarch

juice of half a lemon

black pepper to taste

Things to dip:

• slices of baguette
• pretzels or pretzel bread
• toasted bread cubes
• grapes
• apple slices
• chunks of salami or cooked sausage
• boiled mini potatoes
• blanched vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower, green beans, etc.

Directions:

Cut the garlic clove in half and rub both halves all over the inside of the fondue pot. 

Add the wine to the fondue pot and heat slowly until hot but not boiling.  

Toss the cheeses with cornstarch. Over low heat, add the cheese slowly to the wine, stirring to melt after each addition. Don't let the mixture come to a boil, just keep it warm and stir until it becomes glossy and starts to thicken. 

Add lemon juice and pepper. 

The cheese may still be thin at this point, but it will thicken up as it sits.  

If you have a proper fondue pot with a heating device, keep the cheese warm over the heat source while you eat, reducing the heat as the level of the cheese goes down as it's eaten.  If you're using a regular pot, you can warm it up on the stove periodically if it gets too cool. 

Use long forks to dip into the cheese.  Be careful!  It's hot!

Enjoy!  

Fougasse - Herbed Bread

I've been enjoying The Great British Baking Show for a few years now.  It is such a lovely, calming competition show - basically the opposite of shows where contestants back-stab and sabotage each other. 

I have a decent baking vocabulary, but I'd never heard of Fougasse until I saw it on this season's botanical baking episode.  

Fougasse is a french flatbread, filled and topped with herbs, and shaped to look like a leaf.  

I really love baking bread and wish I did it more often. It can be a little warm to bake bread in the summertime, but this bread is so quick and easy, it's not going to make you sweat. There's no kneading, it can all be done in a mixer with a bread hook.

I used the recipe directly from the PBS Great British Baking Show website. 

I divided the dough in two and baked only one loaf to start.  

I tried to stretch and shape the dough by hand, like a pizza, but it ended up too thin in the middle and too thick on the outside, so it burned a bit in the oven.  The unburnt parts still tasted amazing though!

Since the dough is similar to pizza dough, I figured it would hold the same way in the fridge, so I refrigerated the second half of the dough for a few days until I was ready to try again.  

This time I used a rolling pin to roll out the dough evenly, and it worked perfectly.

We ate our fougasse with a simple soup and salad dinner, but it is amazing dipped in oil and balsamic vinegar as an appetizer.  It would also be a lovely gift to bring to a dinner party, to serve or for the hosts to enjoy on their own. 

Here's the recipe from the PBS website, with slight adaptations: 

Ingredients
500 g all purpose flour, plus extra for dusting
10 g table salt
7 g package instant yeast
2 tbsp olive oil, plus extra for greasing and drizzling
350 ml warm water
2 tsp chopped fresh rosemary
2 tsp chopped fresh thyme
2 tsp chopped fresh sage
½ tsp dried oregano
flaky sea salt

Directions

Place the flour, salt and yeast into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a dough hook. 

Add the olive oil and three-quarters of the water. 

Begin mixing on low speed. As the dough starts to come together, add the remaining water very slowly. Mix for another 8 minutes on a medium speed. 

Add the rosemary, sage and thyme and mix for a minute until the herbs are evenly distributed in the dough. 

Place the dough in a large bowl that has been coated lightly with olive oil.  Cover with plastic wrap and leave to rise in a warm place until at least doubled in size – about an hour. 

Dust the work surface with flour. Pour the dough onto the floured surface and divide the dough in half.  You can shape and bake both loaves now, or refrigerate half the dough in a zip-top bag for up to five days. 

On parchment paper, roll each dough half into a flat oval. Using a pizza cutter make two cuts in a line down the middle of the ovals with a gap between them. Make 12 diagonal cuts in the dough, 6 either side of the central cuts, forming a leaf design, then stretch the dough out slightly to emphasize the holes.

Lift the dough on the parchment and place onto a baking sheet. Place the baking sheet inside a large plastic bag and leave to rise in a warm place for 20 minutes. 

Preheat the oven to 430F.

Spray or drizzle a little olive oil over the top of the loaf.  Sprinkle with oregano and bake for 15–20 minutes, or until the fougasse sounds hollow when tapped on the base. 

Remove from the oven and while still hot, brush with more olive oil and sprinkle with sea salt.

Home Baked Baguettes

Every time I taste freshly-baked bread I wonder why I don't bake it more often. Then I look around at the counter, bowls and hands covered in a gloopy mess and I remember.  This baguette recipe from Dan Leader makes three delicious crusty loaves.  I didn't get them to rise as much as I thought they should, and one of mine was a bit misshapen, but otherwise I declare the experiment a success!  I even kneaded the dough by hand when I usually go with the less messy mixer method.  

The hands on work for this project is minimal, but you need almost a full day waiting for the dough to rise at each stage.  It's called a 4-hour baguette, but it took more like 6 hours for me from first mix to first bite.  Still, that was only about an hour of hands-on time, with delicious results.  

And, you can't beat the ingredients list. Flour, water, yeast & salt. That's it. Baking bread is magic in that way. The simplest ingredients turn into something so fantastic with just mixing and time.

Aside from the basic ingredients, you need a few other items to make this work.  A kitchen scale is a big help because baking works better when ingredients are weighed.  You'll also need parchment paper, a baking stone or inverted baking sheet, a cast iron pan, and a pair of scissors.  

Banana Bread

Banana bread is such a nice treat.  It almost makes you look forward to overripe bananas.   It's a great breakfast or morning snack, and it freezes really well if you can't eat it all.   

Here's what you need:  

Zucchini Muffins

As I've mentioned, we currently have a lot of yellow zucchini growing in our garden.  I knew about zucchini bread but I'd never made it before. I wasn't sure how much zucchini I could use up in the recipe, so I was happy to find that one huge zucchini makes about 2 cups grated zucchini that the recipe calls for.  

For the recipe, I looked to my trusty Joy of Cooking cookbook, which is a great resource for basic/classic recipes like this.  I adapted the recipe a bit and I'll continue to adapt it each time I make it until it's perfect for me, but the recipe is a great start.

Mix together in a medium bowl:

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp ground cinnamon (the recipe called for only 1/4 tsp! I'd use 2 tsp at least next time)

1/2 tsp fresh ground nutmeg

In a separate bowl, mix:

3/4 cup sugar

2 eggs

1/2 cup vegetable oil 

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 tsp salt

You'll also need 2 cups grated zucchini squeezed of excess moisture (1 very large or 2-3 medium zucchini). I grated it in the food processor but you can do it by hand with a box grater. Zucchini is very easy to work with. 

When you mix all this together the batter seems really thick at first, but the zucchini will continue to release moisture and make a workable muffin batter.

Now, you can bake this in a 9x5 inch loaf pan for about 40 minutes, or you can make it into muffins.  I made 2 batches - 24 mini muffins that are nut-free...

And 12 regular sized muffins with walnuts.

I had to keep an eye on the baking times to adapt the recipe, but for the mini muffins I baked them for about 15 minutes, testing them with a wooden skewer at 10 minutes.

For the full sized muffins, it was about 25 minutes.  

Once done, cool them in the muffin tins on a rack for about 20 minutes then carefully remove them.  I didn't use muffin cups for these and they didn't stick too badly, but you could use paper muffin cups to make it easier.  

These are really tasty and a great, easy, inexpensive way to use up extra zucchini.  I love the ones with walnuts.

I plan to experiment with the recipe.  I've had a request to add chocolate chips next time, so we'll see how that goes. I may also try dried cranberries or sunflower seeds.  But for now I'll freeze these for snacks and breakfast for the next few weeks.